Rick George provides details on what athletes' return will look like
At the University of Colorado-Boulder, all student-athletes will have to undergo physicals and testing for the novel coronavirus before returning to the facilities, Athletic Director Rick George said in a conference call with reporters Thursday.
George said there are currently 133 student-athletes in the Boulder area. Those athletes will begin coronavirus testing and physicals. The rest of the athletes will have to quarantine for two weeks before they can access the facilities.
The Pac-12 announced on Tuesday that they will allow athletes to begin voluntary workouts on June 15. Once the athletes start working out, George says the facilities will look very different.
“You won't see the big groups working out at this point. There'll be more functional groups and cohorts as a lot of people call them,” George said.
George will ask the strength coaches to sanitize the equipment between cohort lifts and make sure the student-athletes are social distancing. The medical staff will check every person entering Colorado’s facilities for symptoms of the coronavirus, regardless of if they are athletes or athletic staff members.
The city of Boulder has not allowed gyms to reopen yet, and George is looking to the state and local governments for guidance.
“We're just waiting for the direction and the guidance that we'll get from our local and state,” George said. “But the key thing that I want to mention is that I think there’s a difference in what we’re doing in this regard: we can control who comes in our facilities... We're just waiting for the direction and the guidance that we'll get from our local and state.”
