As the state’s Division I colleges begin shaking off the spring’s coronavirus shutdown to gear up for a new sort of fall sports season, Dr. Carlos Crespo is preaching caution.
“The virus is still among us,” says Crespo, a Portland State professor and director of the OHSU-PSU School of Community Health. “It’s not going away. The measures we have taken have not eliminated it.”
The novel coronavirus has sickened nearly 2 million Americans and killed more than 100,000. Oregon has not been as hard hit as some states, but the state’s death toll is creeping toward 200.
The virus is highly contagious, most easily spread by people in close proximity, talking, coughing, sneezing, yelling or just breathing on each other, all of which happens in a locker room, football field, soccer pitch or volleyball court.
There isn’t a vaccine or known cure. But colleges are planning to open for the fall anyway, some in less than three months. And they’re planning to play games.
“I’m very optimistic there will be some sort of fall competition,” University of Portland athletic director Scott Leykam says. “Two weeks ago, I was not overly optimistic about our path forward. Now, you can see a path.”
University of Oregon athletic Rob Mullens recently told reporters he hopes the Ducks can play all 12 scheduled football games, starting Sept. 5 against visiting North Dakota State.
Ditto for Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes, whose Beavers have nonconference football games in September at Oklahoma State and at home against Colorado State and Portland State.
“We want to play,” Barnes said last week. “We want be at Oklahoma State. We want to play Portland State at home. We want play the entire the schedule.”
But the details are devilish. The NCAA recently came out with a long list of guidelines. Among them are comprehensive testing, screening, quarantining of infected athletes, coaches and support people, monitoring, sanitizing, contact tracing and, as much as possible, social distancing.
It’s exhausting to read and almost certainly will be difficult to implement. This is particularly true for a sport like football, in which gang tackling is the antithesis of social distancing.
Oregon campuses can reopen after the spring term ends on June 12. The Pac-12 is allowing athletes to begin individual, on-campus workouts on June 15. Pac-12 protocol calls for athletes to be tested for COVID-19 and antibodies for the disease when they return, and subject to weekly tests thereafter.
But testing is expensive, with estimates ranging from $50 to $125 per test, depending on the type of test and laboratory used.
If, say, Oregon tests all athletes who compete in the fall, that would include those in football, golf, tennis, cross country, soccer and volleyball. At Oregon State, it would be football golf, rowing, soccer and cross country. But all sports begin training in the fall. And testing weekly might not be enough.
“It needs to be done regularly,” Crespo says. “Ideally, daily, or at least two or three times a week to catch any case early, before transmission.”
Dr. Ryan Norton, interim medical director for occupational health at OHSU, believes testing three times per week would be adequate.
But for that to happen, not only will tests need to be affordable for the schools, they must be available. And those available tests would need to produce results that day, or the lag time for learning an athlete was positive would defeat the purpose of the test.
“It’s hard to predict what the testing supply is going to look like in two or three months,” Norton says.
“Colleges are going to have to be in close communication with health-care partners where they’re located as well as across the state at a governmental level to determine if they are they going to stress the system by testing all of their players, coaches, training staff — anyone who is in close contact with those players on a regular basis.”
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For athletic departments who either can’t afford frequent tests, or can’t find them, other ways of screening are problematic.
Waiting for symptoms to develop means the infected person possibly has been spreading the disease for several days asymptomatically. Temperature checks aren’t much better.
“By the time you have a temperature, it means you have been sick for two to five days,” Crespo says. “That’s the incubation period. That means that person was infecting a whole of bunch of others for two to five days.”
Supposing a player turns up with the virus, either because of a test, a temperature spike or symptoms, that means that player has to be quarantined.
In many cases, so will people who have been in close contact with that athlete. If it’s an offensive lineman, that means the other guys on the line of scrimmage and, possibly, his position coach.
College athletes are at a low risk of developing serious health complications from contracting the virus because of their age, health and physical fitness. But the risks go up for people as they age, which means coaches, trainers and other support staff necessary to operate a football program are more vulnerable.
And unless athletes are segregated from the rest of the student body, an infected athlete risks spreading the virus into the greater community or contracting it from the greater community.
It’s financially impossible for most schools to put their athletes in a self-contained bubble, such as the NBA is discussing, and the National Women’s Soccer League is doing.
“It would be great to rent out the Radisson RED and put all of our student-athletes right down the street,” says Portland State athletic director Valerie Cleary. “But that’s not practical.
“This is one of the things that’s very hard, especially when you break down the contact tracing aspect. Where have they have been living? Who have they been living with? Who are their roommates? Who have the roommates had exposure to? We’re trying to figure out protocol for how we’re going to track that and contain it as much as possible.”
Football remains the big dog in the discussion because schools such as Oregon, Oregon State and Portland State make enough during the football season to float much of the rest of the athletic department. Most college sports do not turn a profit.
University of Portland athletic director Scott Leykam, second from left, says the Pilots need there to be a college season even though UP doesn't play the sport. (Beth Nakamura/file)LC- The Oregonian
The University of Portland doesn’t have a football program. But, Leykam says, the Pilots won’t escape the consequences if the football season is significantly curtailed.
“It’s very much the engine that drives the train of college athletics,” he says. “If there isn’t college football, the strong likelihood is there won’t be much of anything else either.”
It is why schools are pressing ahead, trying to minimize risk and maximize revenue. Athletic departments already are tightening their belts, having lost postseason basketball money this year and anticipating much smaller crowds and less income even if the football season goes forward.
There have been staff cuts. Non-revenue sports almost certainly will have their 2020-21 schedules trimmed. Plane travel and overnight hotel stays will be less likely.
And that is a best-case scenario. Everyone in every athletic department has fingers crossed, hoping there will be a football season.
Norton, the OHSU infectious disease expert, thinks measures such as requiring football players to wear face shields attached to their helmets could greatly reduce the threat of transmission during games and practices.
He believes risks can be made low enough for a college football season to take place, if the players, coaches and staff members buy in enough to be safe, cautious and honest.
That means avoiding parties and large groups of people, and being forthright if a sore throat starts to come on.
“I can envision being in that locker room and hearing a coach explain what it means to be honest about your symptoms,” Norton says. “You jeopardize potentially the entire season for your squad if you try to play through viral symptoms.
“We know there is an asymptomatic period, where there is some transmission of virus. But the viral load is still pretty low in those individuals. Once you’re symptomatic, you’re going to spread the virus to your teammates.”
And so, the fall season appears to be on, even if it looks at this point like the kind of high-wire act that always is one misstep from disaster.
Crespo, the PSU public health expert, is a fellow of the College of Sports Medicine. He values athletics. He understands the pull they have on both participants and spectators. He still counsels caution.
“This is risky,” he says. “It will increase the risks for the healthcare system. What you need to ask yourself is, is it necessary or is it unnecessary?”
More in The Oregonian/OregonLive:
-- Why a shortened or canceled college football season could be cataclysmic for athletic departments
-- Despite a scrubbed NCAA regional, organizers remain convinced Portland would be a great Final Four host
-- Oregon State athletics is facing severe budget cuts
-- All Pac-12 athletes to be tested upon their return to campus
-- Ken Goe
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