COVID vaccines are now mandatory for athletes at these Columbia universities
Benedict College and Allen University didn’t play a single football game last fall because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, their conference put rules in place to ensure the virus won’t cancel another season.
The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference announced Tuesday that it will require its 15 schools, including Benedict and Allen, to have all athletes, coaches, staff, officials and such groups as cheerleaders and the band fully vaccinated for COVID-19. The SIAC is a Division II conference made up of historically Black colleges and universities mainly around the Southeast.
SIAC commissioner Gregory Moore said through a statement that the decision was made because of the vulnerability that rising COVID-19 rates present to athletes, who travel often and risk exposing others on campus to the virus.
“The SIAC policy decision establishing vaccination as prerequisite to intercollegiate athletic competition participation is guided by the overarching interest to protect the health and safety of SIAC student-athletes, and was decided in the light of overwhelming data and evidence which has demonstrated the effectiveness of authorized COVID-19 vaccines combating coronavirus as well as its delta variant,” Moore said.
The SIAC suspended its last fall sports season in July 2020, which canceled Benedict head coach Chennis Berry’s first year at the helm. Instead of installing an offense and scouting opponents, Berry spent last year balancing a roster and fielding questions from concerned athletes.
Allen, meanwhile, made the move from NAIA to Division II and the SIAC in the fall. This will be the Yellow Jackets’ third football season since bringing the sport back in 2018.
Other conferences that canceled fall sports in 2020, such as those at the Division I FCS level, played football last spring. The SIAC did not. This means that Berry, who arrived in Columbia before the coronavirus outbreak engulfed the country, will coach his first game this September, more than 18 months after he was hired. Benedict and Allen open the season against each other Sept. 4.
Two other private colleges in South Carolina — Furman and Wofford — will require all students to get the shot before returning to campus. Public South Carolina schools cannot legally enforce vaccination mandates.
At the nearby University of South Carolina, head football coach Shane Beamer announced Monday that the Gamecock football team was “rapidly approaching” the Southern Conference’s target threshold of having 80% of the team vaccinated.
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 1:49 PM.
