Season in the balance: CCU football players, coaches adjusting to life during a pandemic
Trey Carter is living a low-key, cautious life right now.
In order to protect himself against the coronavirus and do everything in his power to give the Coastal Carolina football team a chance to play the 2020 season this fall, the senior offensive lineman fulfills his daily obligations and spends the rest of his time holed up inside his residence. And he believes his teammates are doing the same.
That’s the current life of a CCU football player as the Chanticleers prepare for a season that may or may not be played in its entirety in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s weird. Usually you’d go to the beach, and stuff like that, be around all your friends, hang out by the pool,” Carter said Tuesday morning before a team practice. “But we’re having to just get used to sitting inside like we’re 80 years old. But we’re getting used to it. We’ve got Netflix and stuff like that, that’s been helping out.
“. . . I’m doing everything I can not to get it, so if it happens, it happens.”
CCU head coach Jamey Chadwell ran through the safety protocols and procedures Tuesday that the team is following to mitigate the chances of the coronavirus spreading through the team.
Players fill out an online symptoms checklist the night before a team activity and are required to stay home if they report symptoms. The player is then further analyzed.
Temperatures are checked daily as players arrive on campus, entry and exit points into buildings remain consistent daily, players are supplying their own water bottles and towels, and they have to wear masks inside including during weight training but aren’t required to wear masks for outside activities.
Players are separated by position and interaction with teammates in other position groups is generally avoided. Players are allowed within six feet of other players and coaches only for intervals of 10 minutes or less.
Players returned to voluntary workouts in waves instead of all together at one time.
Coaches must wear masks or face shields throughout interaction with players and other coaches.
“We’re doing everything to mitigate the virus and keep our guys safe,” Chadwell said. “Our guys are doing a pretty solid job of that so far.
“. . . We’ve had to quarantine some people and some of those things. The hardest thing is really training your guys how to use [protocols] and do it. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s just different.”
Players are told to wear masks when they enter buildings outside of their house, but their travels are often limited to grocery shopping.
“You try not to go anywhere you shouldn’t go, and make decisions in life about what you have to do,” junior quarterback Fred Payton said. “When you’re thinking about, ‘I need to go here,’ or ‘I need to go there,’ do you really need to go there? Anything you do that you could catch the virus, you’d be sacrificing not only your season but your team’s season, so you have to be smart about everywhere you go and think about the impact it could have.”
CCU football players began returning to campus in waves on June 8 for volunteer workouts that continued through Thursday.
The Chanticleers are scheduled to begin fall preseason camp on Aug. 7 and the season is set to begin on Sept. 5 at South Carolina.
An enhanced training period from Friday through Aug. 6 is new this year and allows athletes to spend up to 20 hours on coach-supervised non-contact activities including weight training, conditioning, film review, walk-through practices and meetings.
The entire team, including walk-ons, won’t be together until fall camp begins on Aug. 7. Chadwell said teams are usually allowed 110 players in camp before school starts, and additional players are allowed after the start of the academic school year.
This year, everyone is allowed in the fall camp, so an additional 25 to 30 players will be joining their teammates on Aug. 7.
The school began testing football players for coronavirus upon their return to campus but those test results specifically for cases within the football program will not be made available to the public.
The university said it would not single out any specific faction of the student body when reporting positive coronavirus tests, and will instead regularly report the test results of the entire student body online after it returns for the fall semester.
Carter said Tuesday that he didn’t know anyone who has contracted the virus. He believes he and his teammates may be safer together under the established safety protocols than they would be at home with their families in their respective hometowns.
“They’re doing a great job of keeping us socially distanced and wearing masks and stuff like that, so I think they’re doing a great job of keeping us safe during this whole thing,” Carter said.
CCU announced Friday that it will begin the Fall 2020 semester as scheduled on Aug. 19, but it will continue with online instruction until at least Sept. 8, when it plans to begin in-person instruction on campus.
The Sun Belt Conference has pushed the start of fall sports back to Sept. 3, which doesn’t impact football. At CCU, it impacts the starts of the seasons in volleyball and men’s and women’s soccer.
“I think from everything you’re hearing, everybody wants to try to play as many games as possible,” Chadwell said. “It might not be the original schedule, but there might be teams that are around us that we can pick up and fill a schedule until we get to Sun Belt games. I think all options right now are on the table.”
Other conferences, including some that play football, have canceled, postponed or altered their fall sports seasons.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 have eliminated non-conference games, while the Patriot League, Ivy League, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, Southwestern Athletic Conference, America East, Atlantic 10, Colonial Athletic Association and Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference have canceled all fall sports competitions. The Mid-American Conference has delayed the start of fall sports, though its football teams aren’t included.
Coastal’s schedule includes games against Eastern Michigan of the MAC, USC of the SEC, Kansas of the Big 12, and Duquesne of the Northeast Conference.
“Getting back to football has been great,” Payton said. “I don’t think there’s anybody here that doesn’t want to play. It’s a sport we love and we look forward to playing every year. You get eight months to train and only 12 games to play, so not having a season would be heartbreaking to me. So I’m just concerned about the sacrificial part, not having a season and forcing my teammates not to have a season.”
The Chants are preparing for a full schedule, but that could change any day.
“The biggest challenge to me is going to be when you start fall camp and everybody thinks you’re playing, then somebody pulls the plug and says, ‘Hey we’re not going to play until October maybe,’ ” Chadwell said. “Now there’s a disappointment and some of those things, so you’ve got to prepare for that. But right now everything’s great.”
CCU 2020 football schedule
Sept. 5 at South Carolina
Sept. 12 at Eastern Michigan
Sept. 19 vs. Duquesne
Sept. 26 vs. Kansas
Oct. 3 vs. Arkansas State
Oct. 17 at Louisiana
Oct. 24 vs. Georgia Southern
Oct. 29 at Georgia State
Nov. 7 vs. South Alabama
Nov. 14 at Troy
Nov. 21 vs. Appalachian State
Nov. 28 at Texas State
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Season in the balance: CCU football players, coaches adjusting to life during a pandemic."
