Transcript: Scott Stricklin On Florida Gators vs. LSU Tigers Postponement and COVID Situation
Florida Gators Athletic Director Scott Stricklin met with local media on Tuesday to announce the postponement of the planned Florida -LSU game (originally scheduled for Saturday) and give an update on the current COVID situation within the Florida football program.
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Opening statement
"Due to a significant number of COVID cases, we are unfortunately announcing a postponement of the Florida/LSU game that was scheduled for Saturday, and have worked with Scott Woodward the athletic director of LSU along with the SEC office, Charlie Hussey, Mark Womack and, of course, Mr. Sankey to tentatively have rescheduled again for December 12, which as you know was a date put in the late schedule for circumstances like this because we anticipated there might be issues as we went through the season. Just to give you guys some some some details. Among our scholarship players, we have 18 current positives. We have another three walk-ons, who are positive. So, total of 21 current team members. And when you add in those who are quarantined through contact tracing, as a result of those positives, in addition to a handful of players who are on the non-covid injury list. It gives the Gators less than 50 scholarship players available currently. Certainly understand the importance of you know, trying to have a team prepared, available if possible during this, this, this odd season that we're all in. Certainly, that was our intention, but we've, we've reached a point where we don't think it's appropriate that we try to play the game this weekend. I will think it's important always point out because I get asked this question, I get calls from, ever since we've been through all this the last several months, any time a trainer calls telling me we have an athlete or someone our staff who has tested positive, first question is 'How are they feeling?’
"Fortunately all those who are positive, in this instance, including some coaches and some football staff they seem to be either asymptomatic or only experiencing mild symptoms. That’s obviously a positive right now. Hopefully they will continue to not have more severe symptoms. I’ll also point this out, from when football team mandatory activities began in July, until the first of October, that was 11 weeks. In those 11 weeks we had a total of 10 positive cases within our football program. That’s less than one per week. Protocols have not changed since the calendar rolled over into October but obviously we’re in a different situation. There’s a sense of frustration but we understand this virus can sneak up on you and you can have it spread in an eyelash, really, the bat of an eyelash. That’s what we’re seeing right now. Really have no obvious answers about the origin of the spread, but there’s suspicion that the trip this past weekend to College Station probably was at the root of it. Again, a lot of this is anecdotal but from talking to our sports health staff, a couple of our athletes who have tested positive since coming back from that trip subsequently reported that late last week they had what they thought were allergy type symptoms. One of them was congested, one of them had a headache and they did not report those symptoms as we have an expectation they do so because they didn’t think it was anything other than seasonal type cold that we experience through allergies or whatever. There’s a suspicion that maybe that is what helped make this an event that had this kind of spread.
"Also, I want to point out just again that we’re so fortunate to have the great help from UF Health. This is a state of 21 million people and the best hospital in the state of Florida is about a mile from where I’m standing, UF Health. They have just been an incredible asset and resource for us. Dr. David Nelson, who’s head of UF Health; Dr. Mike Lazardo, who is a infectious disease specialist who has been just invaluable; Dr. Jay Clugston, who is one of team doctors that works for UF Health and services our athletic program; and so many others just have just, we could not have gotten through this at all without them helping us with protocols and testing and all those things that have allowed us to have up to this point safe competition. But obviously we have something going on in our football program. So we are going to pause activities indefinitely until we get a handle on that. Those athletes and staff who are not in quarantine will continue with the regular testing program so we can kind make sure we have a handle on this before we decide next steps.” Coaches sent home until Monday, clearing out the offices? “We’re pausing all activities as I said. We don’t have a timeline on that as I said. For the time being, we’re going to kind of hit pause on everything.”
You mentioned UF health’s advantage many times now, including today. Does this outbreak reflect the struggle in college athletics in general? “I think it's societal. I referenced Dr. Lazardo. I’ve had numerous conversations with him. He’s repeatedly said going back to the spring that we’re going to have a period of spikes here and there and we’re also going to have times when things are seemingly settled we’re going to have many waves. It’s really important. What’s happened here the past few days highlights it. It’s really important that everyone remains diligent. You can’t take your foot off the gas, so to speak, as far as doing all the things that we’re being asked to do, from social distancing, to masking and good hygiene. All those kind of things. It can sneak up on you on a hurry, as I said. The key thing is you’ve got to have the ability to push the brake when things start to occur like we’re seeing right now. That’s another thing Dr. Lazardo said. You’ve just got to be willing to hit pause occasionally. And again, I go back to the SEC schedule was set up with something with an event like this in mind. As much as we want to give our kids the opportunity to compete, we understand this isn’t a normal year and we’re going to have to have the ability to adapt to unusual circumstances such as this.” Anything you can see here moving forward that would help with the protocols? “The travel situation, I think, is going to get a really close review. There’s been some NFL teams that have also had issues with that very thing. There’s no secret that’s the one part of playing sports that is a little more complicated. You’ve heard Coach Mullen talk about all the steps we’ve taken within our own facility to put the weight room, the weight equipment over in the indoor where they have the open air environment and have the meeting spaces up in the stadium where again they have an open-air environment. Doing a lot of things on a day-to-day basis to not put yourself in position where you have something like this occur. It’s hard to create that when you’re traveling. We’ve got to continue to be really open to ideas of how we can make those situations a little healthier if you have a situation where you have a potential spreader involved.”
This something you feared going into this season, where you could have players not want to miss a game, even though they had the sniffles or congestion?
“I don’t want to speculate as to what the mind-set was. I really think it could be as simple as not understanding symptoms. I know people personally who have had the sniffles and a friend of theirs was COVID positive, so they went and got tested and found out they had it. They thought they just had something pretty common. Understanding your own body and being on the lookout to be suspicious when you do have any kind of abnormality, whether it’s a headache or sniffles or fatigue, whatever it may be. As a college student, you have those things, and it’s not uncommon. But in a COVID environment, it’s so important that we are hypersensitive to being diligent on that front. I don’t know that this was a situation where someone goes, ‘I don’t feel well, but I’m going to power through it.’ I think this is a situation where someone felt like, ‘I’ve got a sniffle. I need a Kleenex, and I’m ready to play a game.’”
Timeline for deciding Missouri game? “Well, it’s hard to speculate right now. Obviously we’ll be in communication with the Southeastern Conference and probably get Missouri, obviously as our next opponent, to kind of keep them abreast of what we’re seeing, and we’ll continue as I said our regular testing protocol for those who aren’t in quarantine, and hopefully we don’t have any more positives and we’re able to get on the other side of this and then we can get everyone back in a situation where you can go compete again.” Travel issues specifically what are they? Plane, hotel? “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that. But, again this is just a suspicion, we went 11 weeks with almost single-digit total cases in a home environment, and we go on the road environment. And it’s not the first time we’ve been on a road environment, so obviously you can do it safely, we did it, we went to Ole Miss, but something’s happened in the last 3 or 4 days and that’s the thing that you would point to as the biggest adjustment to our normal schedule. So it just leads you to be a little suspicious that something would happen on that trip.” Did you guys have any team meetings or times the team was together that the virus could have been spread? Or the damage already done? "I think it was probably… I think the dye was cast. So I will give you a timeline as I understand it. We do a round of testing Sunday morning as part of the SEC surveillance program. I got a call early Monday morning from Paul Silvestri, our trainer, to let me know that we have a number of players call him Sunday night reporting symptoms: headache, fatigue, scratchy throat, that kind of thing. And so he said, ‘I haven’t gotten tests back, but I am a little concerned that we may have something going on here.’ They were supposed to have a team meeting at 8 o’clock Friday morning (I think he meant Monday morning here) and they called that off and told the players to standby that there may be an afternoon meeting. We started to get the tests back and it started being positives. We decided to test again Monday morning – I thin Mullen has touched on that, that we tested every day this week in an attempt to get our arms around any potential spread." The players that were feeling allergy symptoms is that related to the travel? They were unwell on the travel? "We had a couple of players told us after the trip they had..somebody had a runny nose and somebody had a headache. Those players subsequently tested positive, they said Friday I had a runny nose and Friday I had a headache, then ‘why didn’t you report that.’ ‘Well I thought it was allergies.’ That was the timeline there.” How long will UF continue to do daily testing? "You know, we'll do that until we feel like we have a handle on [the] spread, so I don’t, I'm sorry I don't have an answer for that. But, we'll test again tomorrow as part of the SEC's normal protocol which will be our fifth straight day, and we probably see how those test results go before we decide—"[SOMEONE’S AUDIO TAKES OVER AND HE STOPS TALKING. How fluid does the rest of the schedule has to be from now until SEC championship and what are the quarantine rules? "Yeah, the scheduling question is probably best directed towards the conference office. We're gonna do whatever we can obviously to be supportive and be flexible and, you know, we have an open date on October 31st, and now we're putting a game on December 12th and we'll use every available weekend when we're - assuming we get on the other side of this - we're able to be willing to play. I think the league has had pretty good camaraderie as far as understanding this is not going to be normal and everyone is gonna have to be flexible if we want to try to get a season in for everybody." "As I understand it, from just being involved in all this for several months, a positive case is - I believe it's 10 days, is CDC guidance, from the day the symptoms first start exhibiting, as far as isolation, and then, those in close-contact, who are quarantined through tracing, is 14 days from their last exposure. Somebody who has a CDC site up can fact check me there."
Going to an all-SEC schedule, could you potentially play a non-Saturday game? “It’s 2020. You never say never. I don’t think we’re in a position to say something can’t happen right now.” What type of test does football use, and if they are PCR tests, do you have access to cycle threshold values for those tests? “They are PCR tests. I don’t know the answer to your second question there, but they are PCR.” Any regrets about the team practicing on Monday? “I can’t answer that question. I really don’t have enough information. At the time, our medical staff was making a decision based on what they knew, and they had quarantined a tremendous amount of individuals. The other thing I’ll say is we’re – I don’t know if there’s very many, if any, examples of transmission in an outdoor athletic setting. I had somebody in the pro leagues, a medical professional tell me recently that they don’t know that there’s a single instance or a single example of that occurring. Now, there may be, but it’s incredibly rare. So, we’re not using our locker room. We’re not using our team meeting rooms. We’re not putting our players in an indoor space. Really, the only indoor space we’ve been in is when we’ve had our two road trips. So again, that goes back to what I said earlier, that’s where the suspicion goes to because we’ve done a really good job of limiting spread even when we’ve had a few positives here and there in our current environment, which we’re blessed to be in Florida where we get to do a lot of things outside.” There’s no way that it could’ve happened from fans spreading it to players, right? “I don’t know, Mike. There were a lot of fans, but I doubt that’s the case.” Are you comfortable that all of the schools in the SEC are doing their due diligence with their fans? “One of the things my predecessor, Jeremy Foley, told me is if we always pay attention to the Gators, we’re probably going to be OK. Our focus, 100 percent, is on making sure when we host games here that we’re creating the right environment, and we’re doing things the right way. So really, that’s been my focus, and I thought the one home game we’ve had, our fans were tremendous, not just from a social distancing standpoint but from a masking standpoint. And it’s not easy, and you have to coach and encourage and set expectations. I can’t speak to how well other schools are doing that, but I feel like we – In fact, in a lot of ways, I think what we did here at Florida that first game is kind of the standard for how to do it, and our staff deserves a lot of credit for putting that in place.” YOU GUYS TOOK LOT OF CARE TO MAKE SURE FANS WERE WELL DISPERSED THROUGHOUT STADIUM, THAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID? "Yeah, and a big part of that was we spent a little money to put those chairback seats around where reserved tickets were. So not only did the fans know exactly where their seat was visually, but the ushers knew. So if someone was sitting on a metal bleacher, the usher instantly knew that person's not where they need to be because we didn't sell a seat in that area, so they were able to help people get in the right location. And several other schools have done that as well. I believe Georgia and Alabama and others have taken that approach, and that works really well, but you've got to be willing to make an investment financially to -- and it's not a ton of money -- but you've got to be willing to make that investment. And this year where resources are a bit of a mess, not everybody wants to make that investment.” DO YOU HAVE NUMBER IN QUARANTINE? "I do not have that, Payton. And I want to, by the way, congratulate you on your scoop, because when you reported your scoop that was the accurate number. It has changed since then, but you had the accurate number, so kudos to you. But I do not have the contact-tracing information as far as the numbers.” Mullen's comments about 90K in stands? "I think based on his comments today that he respects the importance of listening to the medical professionals. Coaches sometimes say things that are outside their area of expertise, and they're really good at what they do. Dan is really good at calling ball plays. I'll share a story with you. I mentioned Dr. Mike Lauzardo and had a conversation with him yesterday and he said, 'Hey, since Coach Mullen is now getting into public health policy, I want to know, can I call some plays?' So, I told him I'd make a deal that going forward, Dan will focus on calling plays and we'll let Dr. Lauzardo focus on the public health policy." What have the past few days been like for you? "I mentioned Paul Silvestri, who's our football trainer, Paul's worked incredibly hard. He's the guy I don't think has slept much. The numbers have just kept increasing. It went from a few cases to a few more to a situation yesterday where we decided to not have practice and then where we are today. So it's obviously a dominated our week, not just because of football. Because this is something that is on top of everything we're doing in this school year. A few weeks ago we had some Olympic sports have similar issues and there's a lot of focus and energy within the department on getting those programs through that and they were able to get through that safely. And you look around at other football programs around the country who've had similar situations and they've come through it on the other side. I really believe we will come through it on the other side. Obviously we want to make sure our players are safe and healthy. And as I mentioned at the beginning fortunately we don't have anybody who's really sick from a symptom standpoint. But we want to make sure we take care of those individuals, we take care of those who are currently testing negative and make sure that they continue to stay safe." "You guys have heard me say this before, we have an unbelievable staff. Duke Werner, Stacey Higgins work with Paul Silvestri and so many others throughout our department. They put a lot of time and effort and energy into giving our athletes an opportunity to have a championship experience with integrity, and this has disrupted the opportunity piece a little bit right now. How are you juggling all of this and holding up? "This is a year that is unlike any we've had before, and it's one that we never want to have again, but it's one that's in front of us. And so, our financial sheet at the UAA right now is a mess. But you know, the worst day of 2020, as bad as today is, and today is no fun, this week has not been a lot of fun. But as bad as this is, the worst day by far of 2020 was that day back in March when we had to tell our basketball teams and our gymnastics team and our track-and-field team that, even though their postseason was about to start, they were not going to be able to go and compete in it. and we had to then turn around and tell all of our spring sports—several of them highly ranked and, you know, felt like they were gonna go have a chance to go win championships—we had to tell them, you need to go home, because your season's over. What we do, and all of us who work up here to support the college athletics, our job is to give young people the opportunity to have competition and support them both athletically and academically. When that's taken away, which it was in the spring, that's brutal. Right now, you know, we've had tennis teams compete, we've had golf teams compete. Our soccer team's competed, our football team has had competition. Volleyball is getting started here in a few days. You know, this is, this is not fun, but it is in such a better place than where we were several months ago and we continue to learn and adapt and COVID is not going away. We've got to learn to manage and deal with it. But we don't have to be scared of it, you know, we can we can continue to to do things but we got to respect it. And we've got to make smart choices, and we've got to protect ourselves and protect one another. So that's probably a lot more than what you bargained for there but I do think it's, you know, this isn't the first sporting event that we've had canceled this fall. Our soccer team, their first match got postponed because of a quarantine issue. So, you know, this probably won't be the last sporting event for the University of Florida that gets postponed this school year, unfortunately. So we’ve gotta learn to manage it. It’s not the end of the world. You know, we want to keep people safe. You know, based on what I know right now, medically speaking, all these individuals are gonna come back and they're going to be okay, and test to make sure we're going to do them all...point is, we're gonna have other, we're gonna have other, this is not the first postponement. Our soccer team had a postponement. But I'm sure we'll have other postponements, and, you know, we'll manage it and we'll move on and the important thing is, you know, can we can we continue to engage our athletes on campus and give them an opportunity to compete.” With game being moved to December, that you could have more than 17,000 in stands? "We will continue to follow the guidance of UF Health and our campus as far as whatever those protocols are. Right now those protocols call for strict social distancing when, when people are gathered together outside. So unless that changes in some way, this is the number we're going to be at. Or let me put it this way; that number will change one day. I don't know when they'll change. But until that changes, this is where we're going to be."
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