Optimism, Safety Remain at Forefront for Clemson Athletics
Dan Radakovich handled a question about why the ACC was moving forward with college football this fall while the Big Ten, Pac-12 and two Group of 5 conferences decided it wasn't safe better than many folks would have.
It was a chance to take a shot at a particular league that's let its drama and lack of transparency with its decisions play out publically. But the Clemson athletic director didn't offer any explanation as to why other conferences didn't want to play. Instead, he talked about how confident the ACC is that it's creating a safe environment for its players.
After all, coaches in the Big Ten are pushing to go from no season until at least January to now live games Thanksgiving Weekend. While it might be a longshot to reverse course for that Power 5 league, there's no sign of backing down at Clemson, despite some early COVID-19 roadblocks for both the program and the conference.
"It’s all systems go at this point in time. We want to play," Radakovich said Friday on a Zoom call with local and national media. "Our student-athletes want to play."
Forging ahead with the Big 12, SEC and three other leagues but without 54 college football teams has had its share of poor optics at times. Two weeks out from the ACC's Week 1 schedule, that decision doesn't look nearly as far-fetched today, although it might take players running out on the field for it all to seem real with the way 2020 has gone.
Bottom line, nobody really knows what the right and wrong decisions are at this time. Clemson is going to allow 19,000 fans into the stands for its home games, but it'll still lose $40 million in revenue, Radakovich said.
While safety and dollars have been the tightrope athletic programs have walked all summer, Radakovich, who's currently charged with making sure COVID-19 testing and protocols are run correctly for football, volleyball and soccer, feels good about where his department is heading into the season. Whether that changes or not really isn't up to him. It's about a virus we can't see and at times understand.
"We're going to continue to try to do all the things we can to keep our student-athletes safe," Radakovich said. "But if we need to pivot along the way, if games need to be moved much like you saw Virginia Tech and North Carolina State move a couple of weeks because of circumstances on their campuses, our schedule was built with some of that in mind from a football perspective. Confident that we'll be able to continue moving forward. Whether we get all 11 games in is up to something that is really out of our control. And we're just going to try to make the best of it right now as we continue to move forward towards our opening game in Winston-Salem on September 12."
The optimism of playing has always been at the forefront at Clemson. Even when the football program reported 37 positive coronavirus cases in June, the Tigers didn't shut down workouts. Instead, they mitigated the situation and tried to learn from it.
Head coach Dabo Swinney has always kept the perspective that he'd lead his team out on the field at Memorial Stadium on Sept. 19, fans or no fans. Right or wrong at the time, the situation has worked in Clemson's favor.
Radakovich said out of 622 tests this week within the athletic department, there were zero positives.
"We have learned," Radakovich said. "I think the athletic department, and particularly our football and basketball programs that were here in early June provided an incredible, live circumstance for our university, as well and we had some initial positives within our football program. We've continued to test. We haven't had a positive test in a couple of weeks within those programs.
"Those students learned. They learned how important it was to follow the guidelines and protocols that were being placed in front of them. I think that as you look at the general student population, again I say the peer-pressure piece is very important and the role-modeling piece is very important. There are campuses that are experiencing some high outbreaks on their campus, but I would hope that much like we did within our athletic program, we were able to push through that, and allow our student-athletes to continue to be here go to summer school trained for the fall season. And now I think, you know, knock on wood, we're in a pretty good situation."
