The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1265429
26 ■ THE WOLVERINE 2020 FOOTBALL PREVIEW their travel, symptoms, mental health and anxiety level, eating and sleeping, etc. Those were reviewed every day by Michigan train- ers, leading up to what Conway referred to as "day zero." Once the Wolverines made it to that point, they reported to University Health Services, where they underwent two COVID-19 tests. One screened for the presence of the virus, and a second tested for antibodies to deter- mine if the individuals already encountered and recovered from COVID-19. For two days thereafter, they sheltered in place in Ann Arbor, undergoing virtual education and a virtual health history with an athletic trainer. The fourth day, they under- went a COVID-19 specific, pre-participation physical exam, vitals checks, some submit- ting to an electrocardiogram and meeting with the team physician. Days five and six, they underwent sports- specific strength testing and movement anal- ysis, and on day seven they began a strength and conditioning program based on the data received and their current fitness. Testing revealed two U-M athletes as posi- tive for COVID-19, both cases in which the individuals were asymptomatic. Michigan has no plans to make players sign a waiver of responsibility for the school, like some programs have insisted upon. "We do have a policy statement that we are presenting to our student-athletes, which basically covers the education that they re- ceived and their families received," Manuel said. "I will give credit to Coach [Jim] Har- baugh for being the first to initiate a seri- ous conversation with the parents and our student-athletes." U-M medical personnel are making pre- sentations to the families of athletes in every sport, Manuel noted. "We want them to understand the policies and procedures, the importance of wearing facemasks, the importance of following the protocols that we designed for them and the coaches and the staff to remain safe," he said. "But we have a policy that if stu- dent-athletes are not wearing their masks, if [they're continuing] to disregard the policies, we will treat it like if somebody breaks a team rule. "We will talk to them, we will try to edu- cate them, we will try to get them to where we are, but continued disregard for the poli- cies, procedures and protocols that are in place could lead up to removal from the team. The safety of everyone is important. "We won't have them sign a pledge or a waiver, but we do want to make sure they acknowledge the policy. But it won't be through a signature. It will be through check- ing a box." Manuel also stressed that during this time, no Michigan athletes will be pressured into participation. "This is not something where we're going to penalize them, in any way, shape or form, threaten to take their scholarship away, any of those things," he assured. "These are dif- ferent times. We understand these are not normal circumstances we're going through. We're going to be supportive of our stu- dent-athletes and work with them and their parents regarding the decisions people are making." A 'Different' Season The Michigan AD acknowledges much of his days involve focus on the sport that paves the way for all the others. He's on a confer- ence call nearly every weekday morning with colleagues around the Big Ten. "We haven't had a final decision on a season and how it will look, every aspect of that, how many fans we'll have in the sta- dium," Manuel said. "I can tell you, it won't be normal. We won't have 110,000 people in Michigan Stadium this year. That's a defini- tive. Will it be 50 percent, or 30 percent, or 20 percent, or 10, or zero, I'm not sure. "That will be a combination of listening to our public health officials, knowing what our stadium capacity can handle, given the direc- tion that is put out by the governor's office or the university. It all depends." Michigan abruptly ended its business-as- usual approach with regard to ticket distribu- tion when officials realized the season itself might be in jeopardy. "We stopped our ticketing process, and just froze it in place," Manuel said. "There were just too many unknowns to continue as we have in normal times. As soon as we have more definitive answers about the season, what it will look like, those types of things, then we can go back and really implement many of the different models we Jim Harbaugh's Wolverines, along with fellow student-athletes on the men's and women's bas- ketball squads, were able to return to campus and participate in voluntary strength and condi- tioning workouts starting June 15. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL