How Ray Tanner answered some of the most pressing questions about COVID-19

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After the NCAA canceled all winter and spring championships and the SEC suspended all intercollegiate competition, practices and team meetings through April 15 in response to the threat of the novel coronavirus which causes the disease COVID-19, South Carolina athletics director Ray Tanner spoke publicly for the first time. Here are some of the highlights of what he said.

Tanner’s opening statement: “The safety, health and well-being of our student-athletes, coaches, staff and fans are the most important responsibility that we have in our athletics department. This COVID-19 issue is a very serious public issue for so many people. I pray for those that have been affected. And all my blessings go to their families as we move forward. And hopefully, it becomes mitigated and eliminated at some point. And I’d like to start with, we have more than 500 students-athletes, coaches and staff, and their health and safety is important for all of them.

And I’d like to depart when we have more than 500 students-athletes, coaches and staff, and the health and safety is important for all of them. Our counterparts, my counterparts in the SEC have been together this week, via telephone prior to that, and we made some decisions of the same mindset.

I’m proud to be part of such a unified group in the SEC led by commissioner Greg Sankey. The decisions that we have made were made with as much information as possible and as expeditiously as necessary. The COVID-19 virus is fluid, with new information coming in all the time, which may cause decisions to be made or revisited.

You probably saw earlier today the presidents and the chancellors in the SEC unanimously approved a proposal from the athletic directors that we would suspend all activity, team and individual activities, effective today through at least April 15. By suspending these activities during this time and cutting back on in-person campus instruction, we’re doing our best to reduce the chances that the coronavirus, COVID-19 will spread in our community.

I know that this is disappointing to a lot of student-athletes, coaches and fans. But this decision has been made with an abundance of caution during the most difficult time.

We’ve implemented a plan for all of our student-athletes, coaches and staff, so that we can deal with the impact of these decisions and we’ve communicated it to of all of our student-athletes, coaches and staff.

We have told our student-athletes who are home to remain there, and who are here. if they want to return home, to do so. Our athletic facilities, including weight rooms, and all of our facilities will be closed during this time. We will be open at the Dodie Academic Enrichment Center for dining and academic services, and our athletic training rooms will remain open. You might have seen that the NCAA has granted a seasonal competition waiver for all the student-athletes that were participating in spring sports, with more information to come.

You also know that under the guidance of the SEC the NCAA, we’ve stopped all recruiting through April 15, on campus and off campus recruiting. The Pro Day that was scheduled for April 19 has been canceled, the spring game on April 4 has been postponed. That rescheduling will depend upon if practices are rescheduled following our April 15 date. In the athletics department, certainly the people that have purchased tickets for our spring events will be refunded. More information to come with that. We continue to have conversations with our public health officials, and we remind everyone to be attentive to everyday preventive actions identified by the CDC.

I know that our student-athletes, coaches and many administrators are disappointed right now. We provide great opportunities for our student-athletes to grow and learn. This is one of those times, that doesn’t involve sport. We we’ve been through tornadoes floods, hurricanes, tragedies, catastrophes and in many times, sport is an outlet for those situations. But this is not one of those occasions.”

On what he would tell his players if he was still a coach: “Well, what I would be telling them and what our coaches have been instructed to tell our student-athletes is to make sure that their health and well-being is of the utmost importance. We’re in a situation that you could have symptoms that you need to be treated for, so that has to be the focus and you know, to tell them to go somewhere and train or stay in shape, that hasn’t been the conversation. At least I hope that hasn’t been the conversation, and I don’t believe that has been. We’re trying to make sure that our athletes have an opportunity to stay at home, they were on spring break, many of them. Some of them were here that have now departed. And that’s what we’d like for them to be.”

On how hard it was on an emotional level to make the decisions he’s made: “Well, you know, like some of you, we were in, we were in Greenville (for the SEC women’s basketball tournament), we were in Nashville (for the SEC men’s basketball tournament), and we watched it unfold. It’s unprecedented. I mean I know we had the tornado in 2008 for the men’s basketball tournament, but it’s very difficult to be a part of that and you don’t have a lot of answers.

As I said earlier, being a part of the SEC, and my colleagues, we were unified in trying to get to a good place. We were in consultation with a lot of other leagues across the country and different people, and we have a tremendous commissioner in Greg Sankey, and it was hard. I mean you you’re thinking about lives, you’re thinking about the community and you’re talking about play. And what’s most important, it’s not play, as much as that’s what we do, we compete and we play games, but at this time we realize that this is not part of the discussion. What do we need to do to make sure that we’re implementing standards and protocols on our campuses with our student-athletes to do the right thing with this horrific COVID-19?”

On if USC has had any discussions about financially supporting event and arena workers during the stoppage: “That has been part of the conversation, but we don’t know where we’ll end up yet. You may be referring to people who work events, but the university remains open. The way that we’re treating our student-athletes and our students on campus has changed dramatically in the last couple of weeks, but that conversation has entered the picture, I’m on the committee on campus, but we haven’t gone very far with it at this point.”

On if he supports winter sport athletes receiving some sort of eligibility relief like spring sports athletes are slated to get: “I would be an advocate. I know that, you know, there were some team that had finished their seasons. There were other teams that were not finished. And there were teams that were going to postseason tournaments. I would be an advocate, if we could come up with the proper solution. I know it’s not easy, but I would certainly be an advocate if we could do that.”

On why the SEC chose April 15 as the end date for suspended team activities: “I think that’s where we landed based on when we analyzed where we were, and talking to other athletic directors and what’s going on on their campus, that we moved, if you will, a few days beyond March 30 to April 15, with an abundance of caution in mind.”

On whether or not the SEC or NCAA has made medical experts available for universities to consult: “Yes, and we’re all consulting with our local health officials, certainly following protocol of the CDC, and the conference is doing the same thing. So we’re sharing information (with) different universities in different states.”