UNC & Missouri State Both Temporarily Suspend Athletics Amid Pandemic

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Missouri State University have both temporarily paused athletic programs amid the coronavirus pandemic.

UNC – Chapel Hill

UNC’s flagship campus started classes last week, on August 10. But positive COVID-19 tests exploded: UNC saw 10 positive coronavirus cases the week before classes, but registered 130 during the first week of classes. The school shifted all of its undergraduate classes to remote learning online.

At the time, the school said student-athletes were among the student groups who could remain on campus, along with international students and students without reliable internet access at home.

But two days later, the school has shut down athletics for a 24-hour period, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. All of the UNC Tar Heel sports programs will halt for a full day, until “at least 5 p.m. tomorrow.” That includes the swimming & diving programs.

The school is currently seeing at 13.6% of its coronavirus tests coming back positive – a rate that has nearly doubled compared to the three weeks before classes began.

In addition to UNC, Notre Dame also shifted its academic programs online after positive COVID tests jumped to 15.9% of the tests given at the school since August 3. Several other colleges have preemptively moved programs online even before classes are set to resume. That list includes Stanford and Michigan State.

Missouri State

Missouri State returned to in-person classes on Monday. But the athletic department has confirmed to SwimSwam that the school’s swimming teams are “taking a two-week hiatus from team practices and activities as a precautionary measure.”

The break in training comes after one swimmer tested positive for COVID-19. The school says the positive test put in motion Missouri State’s policy for contact tracing.

“Because the contact tracing affected the vast majority of our team members, they decided to temporarily halt all team activities and workouts as a precautionary measure,” an athletic department representative said.

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Yup
3 years ago

Lack of leadership and planning in Chapel Hill….

Jay R Kay
3 years ago

“males . . . [are] always the stumbling block in the US.” 🙄

rob davis
3 years ago

More coid mayhem. Unfortunately more athletic programs at all levels will be following these measures.

Coid
Reply to  rob davis
3 years ago

coid

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  rob davis
3 years ago

Now if you meant to say co-ed and not coid mayhem, then that’s probably true.

Howard
3 years ago

How much of this is just to protect sports…I mean football!!!!

coach
Reply to  Howard
3 years ago

Like it or not, protecting football protects swimming.

Last edited 3 years ago by coach
Ol' Longhorn
3 years ago

Smart move. The Georgia State starting QB just announced he had COVID related cardiomyopathy and will be out for the season. “But there’s no risk to healthy young people” I’ve heard so many times on these boards. He wasn’t the first and certainly will be far from the last case of an athlete whose school rushed them back to play that has this problem. You have myocarditis/cardiomyopathy as a swimmer, and you can kiss swimming goodbye. Trevor Lawrence has an enormous Lloyds of London insurance policy: not many other NCAA athletes are so blessed.

meeeee
Reply to  Ol' Longhorn
3 years ago

Typical spin. No one says (at least no one with a brain) “there’s no risk to healthy young people”. That would be asinine. But just like cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, dying from the flu, etc. there is a very low risk to healthy young people.

swimapologist
Reply to  meeeee
3 years ago

Speaking of “no one with a brain” – https://swimswam.com/hun-swimmers-who-tested-positiive-for-coronavirus-devoid-of-antibodies/#comment-819770

And kids, who are at zero risk basically,” – HISWIMCOACH

HISWIMCOACH
Reply to  swimapologist
3 years ago

320 people under the age of 25 have died from Covid.

Out of a population of 104 million +.

The risk is extremely small, approaching zero risk.

Basic statistics matter. The flu is way more deadly for this particular demographic.

Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  HISWIMCOACH
3 years ago

Ok, now do morbidity. Quit focusing on mortality. You lose even 10% of your ejection fraction as an elite athlete, you’re no longer going to be elite. All the hangwringing about Chalmers and Blume having electrophysiology procedures? They had zero damage to heart muscle. Oh, and congrats on your man Bannon.

HISWIMCOACH
Reply to  Ol' Longhorn
3 years ago

“This isn’t political, it’s an infectious disease”. People say that all the time. Then you bring up Steve Bannon, someone who I literally know nothing about.

Way to go. You win.

Last edited 3 years ago by HISWIMCOACH
Ol' Longhorn
Reply to  meeeee
3 years ago

Low risk of dying? Sure. Risk of short and/or long-term organ dysfunction? Not so small.

Hmm
3 years ago

A 24-hour postponement….. won’t change anything

swimming
Reply to  Hmm
3 years ago

vaccines could be discovered in the next 24 hours… think outside the box a little bit my guy

Hmm
Reply to  swimming
3 years ago

And distributed within that time?

Snarky
3 years ago

Those Covid parties really were worth it.

Rookie
3 years ago

Somewhat related: NC State has moved undergraduate classes to online after experiencing its own outbreak. Looks like athletes will still be able to train from what I read.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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