James Franklin to Coach 2020 Season Apart from His Family

Franklin tells HBO Real Sports that his wife and daughters will spend the season in Florida.

Among his program's four core values, Penn State coach James Franklin quite often references "sacrifice." Should there be a college football season this fall, Franklin and his family will make one.

Franklin told Bryant Gumbel on HBO Real Sports that his wife Fumi and daughters, Shola and Addison, will live temporarily at the family's Florida home while Franklin coaches Penn State. They're doing so to protect Addison, their youngest daughter who has Sickle cell disease, from being exposed to the novel coronavirus.

"There was was a lot of tears, a lot of emotion having this conversation," Franklin said on the program, which aired Tuesday. "So a lot of heartache over it."

In an interview with SI.com earlier this spring, Franklin discussed how his family approached quarantine during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because Sickle cell disease compromises immune systems, Franklin and his family were extremely cautious about exposing Addison, who turned 12 in March, to the virus.

The family spent time in Colorado in March, sequestering away from the initial Pennsylvania outbreak. Upon returning to State College, Franklin said the family did not leave their property for more than a month.

"Because of my daughter's illness, we've been on lockdown from the beginning," Franklin said this spring. "It's not something we've messed around with at all. We've been on total lockdown."

That lockdown will continue through the season, should there be one. The episode of Real Sports covered the COVID-19 pandemic and racial injustice through the prism of sports, and college football was an important topic.

Franklin said that "a number of players" chose not to return to Penn State for voluntary workouts, which began June 15. Franklin did not say how many players chose not to return.

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren told Gumbel that the conference plans to start the football season on time, though "there's so many moving parts, this is a fluid situation."

And Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith said that he's hopeful distancing requirements in Ohio will be relaxed enough for the team to host 40,000 to 50,000 fans for home football games.

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