While preparing for athletes’ return, Texas A&M has put its coronavirus plan into action

Texas A&M has been planning how athletes could return to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic for more than a month now, athletic director Ross Bjork said.

“We spent a lot of time on this,” Bjork said in a telephone interview Saturday. “We started the first of May really putting things together, organizing everything, getting the right people around the table, getting a lot of input from folks on campus and folks in the medical community. That’s really all you can do.”

Bjork said A&M’s plan was to gather as much information as possible and to assess options.

“We’re very confident in our plan,” Bjork said.

Even before athletes officially report for voluntary conditioning and workouts Monday, that plan has gotten its first test.

Bjork said “less than five” returning athletes tested positive for COVID-19 this past week in tests by the school. All were asymptomatic, Bjork said, and under A&M’s plan were placed in self-isolation with contact tracing.

“We knew we would have positive tests,” Bjork said. “That’s why you do the tests, to verify that your plan is working and to verify the health and safety of athletes, which is the most important thing.

“Once there’s a positive test, there’s an action plan, we follow all the safety procedures.”

Other positive tests have surfaced around the country, with undoubtedly more to come. Reports indicated that five football players from Alabama tested positive for COVID-19 this past week.

A&M and SEC schools are among the forefront as student-athletes return to campus Monday, a key in a step toward a normalcy and an uninterrupted start to the college football season. The Big 12 is taking a phased-in approach with football players able to begin voluntary workouts June 15.

A&M is expected to release its full guidelines early this week. An executive summary obtained by The Dallas Morning News broke down many of the precautions and protocols focusing on screening, sanitization and social distancing.

Weight rooms and outdoor facilities at the West Campus PDC field, the football practice fields, the soccer fields, baseball field, and the outdoor track will be open. Basketball and volleyball practice courts remain closed, as do locker rooms. The weight room will be limited to one athlete per station, with only strength and conditioning coaches allowed to spot.

Big 12 athletes and staff at many schools will begin testing this week.

Texas e-mailed a 19-page “working manual” on return to campus to football players and their parents this past week, outlining everything from COVID-19 testing to details on the voluntary workouts, an athletic department spokesman confirmed.

“We’re really looking forward to getting our student-athletes back on campus for voluntary workouts, starting with football over the next couple of weeks,” athletic director Chris Del Conte said.

Del Conte praised senior associate athletics director/chief of staff Chris Plonsky as well as other members of a task force that worked on the return of athletes and prepared the manual.

The first phase of what Texas calls “on-boarding” will include COVID-19 testing, daily screening and safety education before workouts in two groups. The first group, comprising upperclassmen living off-campus in the Austin area, will go through on-boarding June 8 and begin voluntary workouts June 15. The second group of underclassmen living in university housing will begin on-boarding June 15 with workouts starting June 22.

Any positive COVID-19 tests will be reported to local health authorities, an athletic department spokesman said. Tentative plans call for the school to reveal any positive test in general terms, not identifying the athlete.

“Much of what we’re doing is similar to the protocols and procedures we had in place for our essential football staff’s return a couple of weeks ago, and that’s been very successful, so I do have a great deal of confidence in our plan and preparation for the student-athletes’ arrival, as well,” Del Conte said.

“It’s so important to have great people leading the way when it comes to managing a challenging situation like this, and from the folks who developed the guidelines and procedures, to those who will execute the plan, to our doctors, sports medicine team and partners at Dell Medical, I feel very confident in the team we have supporting our student-athletes’ return to the Forty Acres.”

Many schools will be following similar protocols based on guidelines.

Texas Tech will announce its plan early this week. Athletic director Kirby Hocutt did confirm in a text that football staff will be examined for COVID-19 on Monday and returning football players will undergo COVID-19 and antibody tests later in the week.

TCU and Baylor will begin returns June 15.

Any athlete or staff member who tests positive will be quarantined for at least 14 days.

Social distancing is the rule with weight room racks 10 feet apart. During outdoor conditioning, athletes will be separated by at least 5 yards.

The one Big 12 outlier in terms of reporting is Oklahoma, which plans to use the time to gather more information on the virus and health and safety procedures.

“The thing I’m proud of is we didn't wait for somebody else to do it,” coach Lincoln Riley said on a teleconference this week. “We didn't wait for somebody to tell us what we could do. We just did simply what we thought was best. ... When our competitors said they’re bringing them back early, we didn’t flinch.”

Bjork remains encouraged and says “confidence is growing each day” about the start of the college football season in early September.

“The data in our state is showing that. The plan we have in place gives us confidence that we can operationalize all of this,” Bjork said. “The key that we don’t quite have a grasp on yet, because we haven’t gotten to this point yet, is what happens during practices, what happens during games.

“That’s kind of the next step in these things.”

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