Can COVID derail football season? Not if Gamecocks lead way with vaccinations

University of South Carolina Football Coach Shane Beamer isn’t looking back.

Beamer, who took on the role of head coach in December 2020, knows that last season, played in the midst of a global pandemic, had more downs than ups.

The Gamecocks ended the 10-game, conference-only schedule with a 2-8 record and missed a chance to play in the Gasparilla Bowl against UAB thanks to a number of positive COVID-19 tests.

“There’s not a lot of expectations for South Carolina football this fall,” Beamer acknowledged during this week’s SEC Media Days held in Hoover, Ala.

“I get it,” Beamer said of the low expectations, adding he isn’t concerned with outside perceptions. “I like the team that we have.”

But Beamer did highlight one of the ongoing challenges facing the Gamecocks and all athletic programs right now - the looming presence of COVID-19 and chances the virus will once again impact the team and its fans.

Last year, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey managed to put together a 10-game season in which SEC teams only played each other.

During media days, Sankey said the 2020 season was made possible thanks to a concerted effort by the teams and medical staff, which administered some 350,000 COVID tests.

But he also expressed concern about what’s to come.

Positive COVID tests have shut some Americans out of the Tokyo Olympics and continue to wreak havoc on everything from Major League Baseball to the College World Series.

“Right now, 43 percent of our football teams, that’s 6 of 14, have reached the 80 percent threshold in roster vaccination,” Sankey said. “That number needs to grow and grow rapidly.”

Sankey even raised the possibility of games being forfeited if teams aren’t healthy enough to play, an unwelcome prospect for the players, the fans and the league.

For his part, Beamer said his team is “rapidly approaching” the 80% vaccination threshold Sankey mentioned and that the offseason has been spent educating the players and staff.

Experts from the conference and in-house doctors at the university have spoken with the team about the vaccines, and meetings have even been held with players’ parents.

Just this past week U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a warning about the danger of COVID-19 misinformation, a warning endorsed by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“Health misinformation is an urgent threat to public health. It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, and undermine public health efforts, including our ongoing work to end the COVID-19 pandemic,” Murthy wrote.

Beamer is looking to counter the spread of misinformation in he locker room with the help of experts.

“We want to educate them,” Beamer said. “I think a lot of our guys have heard different false information, misconceptions about the vaccine and we want those guys to be able to ask questions freely with the doctors that we’ve provided for them.”

Here’s hoping Beamer’s education efforts are successful and the Gamecocks and the rest of the SEC can pull off whatever a normal season looks like in these unusual times.

As the song says, let the Fighting Gamecocks lead the way.