Frank Martin: College basketball season won’t last unless COVID-19 policies change
Up until the last few days, college basketball had felt normal again. The strangeness of last year’s COVID-19 season — the empty arenas, the socially distanced and mask-wearing players, the constant postponements — had largely dissipated across the country.
But in the past week, a wave of positive cases has forced cancellations and postponements nationwide and has had college basketball coaches scrambling.
And once again, just like last season, Frank Martin and the Gamecocks find themselves right in the thick of it.
The USC men’s head coach didn’t hide his frustration Friday morning, after news broke Thursday night that up to six Gamecocks could sit Saturday night’s game at Clemson due to a combination of COVID-19 and injuries. Martin, who contracted COVID-19 twice last season, said he thinks the sport needs to re-evaluate its COVID-19 policies now that a vaccine exists.
“If you’re vaccinated, and you’re asymptomatic, you should not get tested because the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from being positive,” Martin said Friday. “... I’ve had this crap twice. I’m double vaccinated. Next week, I go get my booster.
“If they make me take a test, I’m not symptomatic and I’m positive ... (then) I’m out for 10 days. That’s what it was before vaccines. Why are we doing the same thing with vaccines? I don’t comprehend that. I don’t know how we (college basketball) are going to be able to play a season with policies that were in place pre-vaccination.”
Martin, who said all but two players on the Gamecocks are vaccinated, noted some of the discrepancies between last season and this season:
▪ Unlike last year, the Gamecocks have played in sold-out arenas at Coastal Carolina and in Rock Hill, with fans right on top of players. Most of the fans aren’t wearing masks, and at least in the state of South Carolina, there’s been no vaccination requirement for fans to attend games.
▪ Unless they test positive, players aren’t isolated in the same ways they were a year ago. They work out, practice and gather as a team instead of breaking into smaller pods.
“If I’m going to go do my job with the same policies that were in place pre-vaccination, that doesn’t make sense to me,” Martin said. “How are we going to do our jobs when we know that it’s infection season, that we’re traveling, we’re staying in hotels? We don’t stay in private hotels. We stay in the hotels that every John Doe stays in, and then we’re gonna go to arenas that are sold out.
“And the one thing that’s proven is vaccines don’t prevent this from spreading. Vaccines prevent us from dying, not from spreading. So if we’re going to be exposed to all this, but had the same policies that we had pre-vaccine, then what’s the purpose of getting vaccinated? We’re not gonna be able to play the season.”
Martin said the team received another round of tests Friday morning. Just after 3:30 p.m. Friday, the team’s official account posted to Twitter that the Gamecocks had boarded the bus for Clemson.
It was not immediately known how often South Carolina tests its players.
Per SEC policy, only unvaccinated players, coaches and support staff require regular surveillance testing before games. The SEC Medical Guidance task force also “supports current CDC guidelines that recommend fully vaccinated people get tested 3-5 days after their exposure, even if they don’t have symptoms and wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until their test result is negative.”
Martin said he didn’t want to criticize or place blame on anyone in particular, but he did want to express his concern for the policies in place.
“I’m trying to say stuff to stir people’s brains, so they can create conversation,” Martin said. “Because if what I say makes sense, let’s let’s figure it out. And if it don’t make sense, that’s all right, ignore me, but I’m not passing blame. I just think we got to evaluate this if we’re gonna try and play the season. Because if not, it’s not going to work.”
This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 1:35 PM.
