South Carolina’s Caslen sheds light on SEC view of myocarditis, Big Ten decision
Near the close of the University of South Carolina’s marathon Friday board meeting, a slide popped up that was somewhat different from the range of questions about governance and budgets: a football update.
School President Robert Caslen spoke about some of the things he’d learned from an SEC meeting the day before. The plan is to move forward, but obviously the football season remains up in the air and will for a while longer with the coronavirus pandemic ongoing.
But he also spoke to a pair of issues that have been top of the news and at the heart of questions surrounding the SEC proceeding with a football season: the heart condition myocarditis and the gaps between the SEC’s and the Big Ten’s reads on the medical situation.
Myocarditis is a heart issue associated with viruses that go well beyond COVID-19. The inflammation can cause a range of issues in the heart, including some that can be deadly. An ESPN report linked concerns with the condition to the Big Ten’s choice to shut down football in the fall.
“The report that everybody is concerned about, what they had reported, the sample size they used was 50-year-old men,” Caslen said, referring to what he heard from the SEC task force. “Rather than 21-year-old athletes. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the same particular sample group.
“They also said that myocarditis is something that can be identified with an EKG or with an echo test and with a discussion on symptoms. So it’s not that you wonder whether or not you have that. It’s something that can be detected.”
That led to the recommendation that things could move forward with more monitoring.
Caslen also said questions of different regional approaches, why an approach in the South would be different from the Midwest, were raised, and Dr. Catherine O’Neal provided some guidance to the school presidents on that front.
“The response was, our knowledge, our understanding and our risk-mitigating factors that we have put in place based on what we experienced with the COVID crisis thus far, particularly in the Southeast, because it was here in a large number all the way since the spring,” Caslen said, referring to what the infectious disease specialist from Louisiana said. “Not to the level that it occurred in the Midwest and geographically now that they’re experiencing the upticks that they are, they are making a decision based on what their particular experience is, not based on the knowledge base that the Southeastern Conference universities have been learning.”
The Big Ten shuttered its football season earlier in the week along with the Pac-12. That leaves the SEC, ACC and Big 12 as Power 5 conferences still going ahead with football. The SEC is set to start on Sept. 26, but the 10-game conference-only schedule isn’t fully set.
The NCAA has already canceled all other fall championships, leaving most of the Gamecocks’ other fall teams in limbo.
This story was originally published August 15, 2020 at 11:35 AM.
