D’Ion Marley, Tucker Ashburn, Jake Wiggins and William Paronto, Butler Student Sports Media and Caylen Lowery, Reporting 1 Student
Everyone knows how hard COVID is affecting the sports world. Butler Community College has been feeling those effects lately with the men’s and women’s basketball teams and volleyball team that were quarantined. All sports are going into week 12 of training and practice, but those that had been shut down and quarantined because of COVID-19 are back now. All three teams had to quarantine for a two to three week period, putting them behind their practice schedule and risking their season.
Assistant Athletic Director Tyler Nordman gave some insight on how things went with the teams that were in quarantine.
“The dates of when teams get out of self-isolation are different,” Nordman said. “It all depends on when they were found to be a close contact with positive case. It is 14 days from the last close contact with a positive case. We do contact tracing, but as an extra precautionary measure, we go ahead and self-isolate the entire team. We wouldn’t necessarily need to do that if there hasn’t been close contact, but we are just doing that as an extra precaution.”
But he said this might not influence the upcoming seasons.
“No, not at this time,” he said. “It’s still very early to tell what the spring is going to look like. Our only team in competition right now is cross country and their next meet isn’t until [Thursday,] Oct. 28.”
He ended with saying COVID-19 prevention will continue.
“I am very proud of how our coaches, students and staff have handled the COVID situation all year, and we will continue to do what we are doing,” Nordman said.“We got here early August and have had very few positive cases within the department. The teams are following protocols very well and doing everything they can to keep everyone safe and from the virus spreading. We have close to 400 people associated with the athletic department and have had a very small number of positives within our teams and from contact tracing, we have found that almost all of them are contracting it outside of the team environment. “
Butler basketball players Shae Mitchell from Minnesota and Sam Ward from Kansas City went through this.
“We experienced the quarantine,” Mitchell said.“It was a mixed feeling between good and bad. Not being in class slightly hurt us because we are normally in-person learners. Because the team was in quarantine, we were sent home. We were glad to see our families, and we think the school did a good job of handling our infection and enforcing the protocol.”
Some of the teams practicing, including cross-country, soccer and football, are all sports held outdoors, which gives them a little advantage. They have been taking precautions by making players mask up in and outside to make sure that their players and teammates are safe and healthy. The football team even makes the players get temperature checks before every workout, practice and meeting. Players also spray and wipe down the benches and weights after using them in the weight room to maintain safety and sanitation.
Teams have been told to keep a social bubble. Coaches tell their players to not go outside their bubble and risk them getting shut down and don’t let anyone, especially outside of the school, into the dorms or Villas. They make sure players are constantly masked up and make sure they wear gloves in the café, salad bar and when getting drinking cups. If they feel sick or have symptoms, they make their players go and seek student health on campus.