BYU is the latest Division I university to allow swimmers back to campus for voluntary workouts under NCAA guidelines. The Cougars’ first workout back at the Richards Building Pool was on Monday.
Members of both the men’s and women’s teams are allowed to workout in the pool after passing “temperature checks and other protocol.” The school has indicated that they are not conducting mass coronavirus testing, as many other universities have done. Instead, the school is focusing on ‘symptom checks,’ such as taking student-athlete temperatures. A spokesperson for the athletics department did not know how many swimmers had taken advantage of the opportunity so far.
Other schools that have confirmed bringing swimmers back to campus for voluntary workouts are Texas A&M, Louisville, and Delaware.
This is the 3rd phase of student-athletes that the school is allowing back on campus. In the first phase, which BYU began on June 1, the first date the NCAA allowed voluntary workouts, football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball were allowed back on campus.
On June 15, phase 2 teams, which included fall sports of women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s cross country, and gymnastics, were allowed to begin voluntary workouts. The rest of the university’s athletics programs, including the swimming & diving teams, were allowed back on Monday as part of phase 3 of the program. In some programs, like LSU and Clemson, as many as 30 student-athletes are in quarantine after either testing positive or coming in contact with someone who tested positive. At Clemson, 28 athletes have tested positive, including 23 football players.
In many cases, it is believed that the virus was contracted not during workouts, but while visiting bars.
BYU has not yet announced any positive tests among student-athletes, though almost every major university that has allowed athletes back on campus has had at least 1 positive test.
For swimming programs, the line between “sport-specific” training and “conditioning” is a little blurred, given that the majority of sport-specific training in swimming is conditioning based, but the general guidance is that coaches may only be on deck or in the weight room to ensure the safety of participants and are not supposed to be actively coaching.
Like many other schools, BYU has announced that they will have a hybrid of in-person and remote classes in the fall, with classes beginning on August 31. Classes will be in-person until Thanksgiving break, at which time learning will continue remotely for students who travel home for Thanksgiving.
The BYU men finished 2nd of 6 teams at the 2020 MPSF Championship meet, while the BYU women placed 3rd out of 8 teams.
Early in the pandemic, Utah kept its cases low, especially relative to most northerly states. Since late May, though, the state has seen its daily numbers of new cases almost triple, though the number of deaths from COVID-19 have risen more modestly. In total, Utah has confirmed 18,035 coronavirus infections and 158 deaths, which is still relatively-low compared to other states of a similar size.