New Mexico Basketball Teams Seek Refuge
The two teams will move to Lubbock and Amarillo, which are in counties with some of the highest rates of COVID-19 per 1,000 residents in the state.
Facing restrictive policies prohibiting team sports, the University of New Mexico’s basketball teams have fled their home state, seeking refuge in Lubbock and Amarillo — two of the hardest-hit coronavirus hot spots in Texas.
UNM is relocating both the women’s and men’s teams, hoping to take advantage of laxer COVID-19 restrictions in the Lone Star State, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican.
New Mexico is under a two-week shutdown of nonessential businesses, which started Monday in an attempt to curb coronavirus spread. Under state guidelines, athletic departments don’t allow games or workouts of more than five people, and anyone who comes from outside the state must quarantine for 14 days. These guidelines led UNM’s football team to relocate to Nevada to practice and host games last month.
In Texas, where total cases exceeded 1 million last week, Gov. Greg Abbott has allowed sporting events to go forward with 50% capacity in the stands, though most major university football programs opted to set their capacities at 25% this fall. Student athletes and staff have tested positive for the coronavirus throughout the season, requiring several cancellations. Texas A&M postponed its game last Saturday against the University of Tennessee after a player and staffer tested positive and later postponed this Saturday’s game against Ole Miss. The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston also delayed their games this Saturday.
“We’re an open-door community,” Lubbock County Judge Curtis Parrish said about the out-of-state team’s move. “We want people to come in for whatever they need.”
Parrish’s interview with The Texas Tribune came less than an hour after his office announced he tested positive for COVID-19.
The men’s team will reside in Lubbock temporarily, though UNM is still finalizing where the team will practice and play games. Parrish said he has no worries and that he trusts the university to take the necessary health precautions.
At West Texas A&M University, where the UNM women’s team will play, an official said the school is “pleased to host” the Lobos.
“There are no concerns from my perspective. These are private basketball practices being held in a gym with student-athletes who are being tested 3-4 times per week for COVID, have daily symptom checks and basically live in a bubble outside of practice,” said Michael McBroom, the university’s athletic director, in an email. “We will continue to exercise the responsibility and opportunity to serve our students and state as a demonstration of our thoughtful commitment to excellence.”
In Texas’ Panhandle, home of West Texas A&M, the hospitalization rate is nearly 40%. Abbott said that hospital regions with more than 15% of capacity serving COVID-19 patients are considered severe enough that bar openings should be banned. In Lubbock, the hospitalization rate is nearly 30%.
Both areas also have some of the highest rates of COVID-19 per 1,000 cases in the state.
According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Eddie Nuñez, UNM’s athletic director, considered a number of locations and chose West Texas because it was close to Albuquerque. The school’s football team already moved out of the state to Nevada so it could play its games and salvage broadcast contracts.
The newspaper also reported that there had been no new COVID-19 cases in either the football or basketball team since last week.
Returning to Football
College football is starting back up with a new burden: It's the most visible evidence of the wisdom of putting Texas students back on campus.
Analysis: College football is back — as both a spectacular and a science experiment
"Analysis: College football is back — as both a spectacular and a science experiment" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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Texas’ college football players won’t be the only people with butterflies in their stomachs this weekend.
They’re just the most public players in the state’s reopenings of educational institutions, a fraught statewide foray into in-person education, live arena events, and the kinds of young adult interactions that have made coronavirus hot spots of campuses and college towns across the country.
Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University were supposed to play Friday but canceled when some TCU players and staff tested positive for COVID-19. SMU played last Saturday against Texas State University, but the TCU-SMU game would have been the first involving a Big 12 school. This weekend, two Texas schools in that conference will take the field: the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech University. A third was supposed to play, but Baylor University postponed its weekend game after several Louisiana Tech players tested positive. Texas State will play again, this time against UT-San Antonio.
Returning to school is a test for the students, the schools and the state. Returning to football, with its wider audience and high visibility, raises the stakes.
Not everybody has followed the stories about COVID-19 cases at colleges in Texas and elsewhere. Search the internet for “COVID” and the name of your favorite school, and you’ll get a quick peek. For a lot of places, things are going well; either the students know what they’re doing, the schools know what they’re doing, or both.
Lots of places aren’t so lucky. The New York Times surveyed 203 counties where students make up at least 10% of the population — college towns, basically. Half of those had their worst pandemic weeks after Aug. 1.
Many schools have COVID-19 dashboards to keep everybody up to date. Here’s one at UT-Austin, where cases have jumped in the last couple of weeks. Another, at Texas A&M University, tells a similar story — that cases rise when school starts and the population swells.
Increases in coronavirus cases were expected. The question — and it’s still unanswered at this point — is whether it’s wise, on balance, to reopen in the way Texas colleges have reopened.
In the meantime, the most visible results tend to be the negative ones. And the blame tends to be aimed at students — especially when they’re off campus — and not at the administrators and others running the schools. If you put a bunch of young people together, away from home, with plenty of free time, you don’t get something you’ve never seen before — you get what you’d expect.
But the students are the reopening vanguard for the rest of us.
Some schools planned for this better than others. Some were ready to handle coronavirus outbreaks, and others are learning. For instance, schools that had been sending sick students home are now keeping them on campus, in quarantine, where they don’t take a contagious disease back to their families and their hometowns.
Students, like everyone else, are looking for ways to blow off steam, to enjoy their leisure time. At the moment, they’re shut out of bars, restaurants and other gathering places. Swimming pools and river tubing and similar adventures are off limits. As Karen Brooks Harper reported for The Texas Tribune, the responses vary. Baylor is cracking down to see that students don’t get rambunctious in ways that would spread the virus. Texas A&M has asked the surrounding community to report big off-campus parties and gatherings.
But now college football is back. It’s one of the most visible things colleges do. It’s full of built-in social distancing violations, too, with crowded arenas, tailgate parties, house parties, sports bars and all the rest.
All that is supposed to be on hold this year, or tamped down to a nonthreatening size. The players have their own risks — remember those TCU and Louisiana Tech examples. Students on the whole have had their own risks since they began drifting back to campus for the fall semester.
Now the fans will be tested, and in two ways. They’ll either behave or not; it’s just as easy to spread a virus if everybody gets together in front of a TV set as it would be at a tailgate.
Second is the test that’s of interest to people in college administration, in government and in politics: Whether it’s smart to proceed with a season of college football during this pandemic — and with a semester of students gathering on and around the campuses of the colleges that field the teams.
Disclosure: Baylor University, Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, Texas Tech University and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/11/texas-football-coronavirus/.
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Dallas Soccer Team to Play in Front of Fans
A maximum of 5,110 fans will be in attendance for the game Wednesday, August 12, while other major league sports continue to play in empty arenas.
In a first for major leagues since pandemic, FC Dallas soccer team to play in front of thousands of fans
"In a first for major leagues since pandemic, FC Dallas soccer team to play in front of thousands of fans" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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The coronavirus pandemic ground American professional sports to a halt in March, causing leagues to cancel games and, later, play in empty arenas and stadiums. But on Wednesday, fans will return to live major league sports in Texas: FC Dallas, the Major League Soccer team, will host Nashville SC in a match in front of potentially thousands of spectators.
The game appears to be the first major league sporting event that will be played in front of fans in the United States since the early part of the pandemic. The other big professional team sports leagues currently in action — the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League — have been playing in front of empty seats.
A maximum of 5,110 fans will be able to attend the game, filling about 25% of the 20,500 seats in the team's Toyota Stadium in Frisco. That capacity level is well below Gov. Greg Abbott's 50% limit for venues in his most recent executive order governing sporting events.
The MLS suspended its season on March 12, citing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control. It returned to action in July for the MLS is Back Tournament, which was played at the Walt Disney World resort in Florida. FC Dallas did not participate, however, because about 12 players and one coach tested positive for coronavirus before their first match.
Officials say the stadium will be prepared to open safely and protect fans and staff from the coronavirus. Attendees will be assigned into one of two zones and will be separated by a number of seats in order to follow proper social distancing protocols. The stadium is also moving to minimize interactions between attendees and staff by going cashless and reducing the exchange of paper by using digital tickets. The team will be requiring the use of face masks from the moment people step onto the property.
Before buying tickets, fans will also be required to sign a liability waiver in which they agree not to sue if they are exposed to COVID-19.
Gina Miller, the team's vice president of media and communications, said players, staff, trainers and other personnel have been instructed on best practices and are being tested every other day, as recently as Tuesday.
"We polled our fans and more than half of [900] said that they would feel comfortable attending magic Toyota Stadium," Miller said. "They indicated that what they missed more than anything was that sense of community, that camaraderie, that soccer experience."
Miller added the team and staff will be tested again Thursday morning.
"I just think it's going to be a proud moment for our entire organization," Miller said. "With so many of us really being challenged right now by being isolated or socially distant or not being able to experience some of those things that we love to experience in life, we hope to be able to provide that great moment of entertainment and respite."
The FC Dallas game will mark the resumption of the MLS season, but the league says the majority of its games will continue to be played without fans. In an announcement detailing the upcoming schedule, the league said it will work with local health authorities "on a plan for limited capacity at certain games where allowed."
Not all fans plan to participate, however. The Dallas Beer Guardians, an FC Dallas supporters group, said it won't be hosting tailgates or organizing watch parties upon the team's return.
"We miss being in the stadium as much as you do, but each of us feel we have a responsibility to our families and to the public health to continue to distance until the COVID-19 crisis is under control," the group said in an open letter to its members.
Sarah Deemer, an assistant professor at the University of North Texas, said she believes the team’s move to open the stadium up for fans is irresponsible. She lived in the Dallas area for about four years and she could be seen at nearly every game throughout the season. Today, she would not even consider stepping into the stadium during the pandemic.
“All other professional sports that are playing right now are not really allowing fans,” Deemer said. “I really feel that they need to wait. … We all want to watch sports. I miss watching sports. I miss watching live sports, but we just have to at this particular time.”
Live sporting events have been a major point of debate in recent days as leagues look for ways to press on despite widespread concerns from public health officials about large public gatherings. Abbott first made it possible for Texas sports stadiums to open at limited capacity on May 31. And while professional leagues have opted to keep fans away until now, Abbott has been predicting for months that college football will return in the fall. This week, he reiterated that he hopes that happens.
Two major college football conferences — the Big 10 and the Pac 12 — moved to cancel their fall seasons Tuesday, citing the health risks for the athletes and their communities. Faced with the possibility of the University of Texas at Austin playing football games with fans in the stands this fall, Dr. Mark Escott, Austin's interim public health authority, recently warned that COVID-19 cases could multiply at games.
"We’re not in situation where we can take that kind of risk," he told CBS Austin. "I don’t anticipate at any time this fall we’ll be in a position to take that kind of risk."
Data shows coronavirus hospitalizations declining in Texas, with 7,216 coronavirus patients reported in Texas hospitals on Tuesday. That’s down from a late July peak of about 11,000 — but remains well above Texas’ levels in the spring, when daily hospitalizations plateaued below 2,000.
But even as hospitalizations reportedly decline, other stats have raised concern about the spread of the virus in the state. The percentage of coronavirus tests over the past week yielding positive results has climbed to 22.2%. Earlier in the pandemic, Abbott pegged any positivity rate above 10% as a red flag.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in late July, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, said stadiums should implement social distancing measures and require masks in order to welcome fans back safely, adding that outdoor stadiums are a better option than having people indoors.
"I think they would have to do everything they possibly can to safeguard the health and the welfare of people," he said. "Namely, they’ve got to have a considerable degree of distancing."
He also said people who are older or who have health problems should decide carefully about attending games.
“I have a daughter who’s perfectly healthy," Fauci said. "If she loved baseball the way I love baseball and said, 'Dad, what do you think? I want to go in, I’m going to wear a mask and I’ll be physically distant.' Would I tell her absolutely don’t go? No, I don’t think so. I would let her make up her own mind."
Some fans indicated they will be willing to take the risk. Luis Dollar, president of FC Dallas support group El Matador, said the team has been in contact with the group for the past few months and had already shared their plans on welcoming fans back, reassuring them about their safety measures. He added that he expects the majority of the group’s active members will be going to see the game.
“At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to Wednesday night, and whether or not it runs smoothly,” Dollar said. “As much as we love football, life is a little bit more important.”
After seeing how FC Dallas enforces masks and manages the guests tomorrow, he will decide whether he will attend the rest of the season, he said.
The University of Texas at Austin and The University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/11/fc-dallas-soccer-texas/.
The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state. Explore the next 10 years with us.
Some Texas High Schools can Start Football
High school athletes who attend smaller public schools in Texas can start practicing volleyball and football as soon as Aug. 3. But bigger schools, which are more likely to be in more populous areas, will have to wait longer, according to new guidelines released by the University Interscholastic League on Tuesday.
Some Texas high schools can start football, volleyball practices as soon as Aug. 3
"Some Texas high schools can start football, volleyball practices as soon as Aug. 3" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
High school athletes who attend smaller public schools in Texas can start practicing volleyball and football as soon as Aug. 3. But bigger schools, which are more likely to be in more populous areas, will have to wait longer, according to new guidelines released by the University Interscholastic League on Tuesday.
Due to the continued coronavirus pandemic, the UIL, which is the organization that governs high school sports in Texas, created two separate calendars based on school size for resuming football, volleyball, tennis and cross country. Schools with the 1A to 4A designation can start meeting for games and meets in mid- to late-August. Schools in 5A or 6A, which are the biggest schools, will have to wait until September.
Marching bands across the state can begin their curriculums on Sept. 7.
The organization also issued guidance on face coverings, protocols for individuals exposed to COVID-19 and how to set up meeting areas like band halls and locker rooms.
The decision comes as discussions remain heated among parents, teachers and local and state officials about how and when to reopen schools. Just last week Texas education officials relaxed a previous order that would have given public schools just three weeks from the start of the fall semester to reopen classrooms for in-person instruction.
But the UIL acknowledged that “not all schools will be able to start at the same time” and left some room for schools to decide for themselves when they’ll begin scheduling sports, according to the press release.
UIL will work directly with schools whose scheduling concerns aren’t addressed in the plan so they can participate in “as many contests as possible.”
“Our goal in releasing this plan is to provide a path forward for Texas students and schools,” said UIL Executive Director Charles Breithaupt in the press release. “While understanding situations change and there will likely be interruptions that will require flexibility and patience, we are hopeful this plan allows students to participate in the education-based activities they love in a way that prioritizes safety and mitigates risk of COVID-19 spread.”
On the college end, sports decisions are still in limbo. While NCAA officials have not yet released firm guidance on fall football, University of Texas at Austin Athletics Director Chris Del Conte indicated in a report earlier this week that football preparation was moving forward in accordance with local guidelines.
Earlier this summer, Gov. Greg Abbott announced college and professional stadiums were allowed to operate at 50% capacity, making it possible for about 50,000 Longhorn fans to be seated in stands this fall.
Raga Justin contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/21/texas-high-schools-football-volleyball-practice/.
The Texas Tribune is proud to celebrate 10 years of exceptional journalism for an exceptional state. Explore the next 10 years with us.