A Series of Quarantines for Pacer Athletics, Interview with Athletic Director Jim Herlihy

Despite taking multiple precautions, the Pacers soccer team marks the fourth USC Aiken sports team that has had to go into quarantine this semester alone.

The initial decision to bring back sports following the university shutdown early March, according to athletic director Jim Herlihy, was made this year.

Sports were allowed to resume if they could be done “in a way that allowed some competitive opportunities,” but with a focus on the “health and safety of the participants,” along with a reduction on travel and number of games, stated Herlihy.

He expanded on the scheduling for the athletic department, citing guidance from the NCAA as a factor into the truncated schedules: “We built schedules that will minimize travel, allow [us] to provide safe environments to play, we agreed on testing protocols.”

Athletes were given the option to choose whether they wanted to participate, Herlihy explained. “We went ahead and [asked] the athletes ‘Do you want to play or not?.’ They had the chance to opt out, some have opted out, a lot have decided to play— we just had another opt out today. They didn’t feel comfortable or didn’t want to do all the testing and all that stuff.”

Precautions for the athletic department mimic similar state wide COVID-19 precautions. “There’s mask-wearing, we follow social distancing, there’s hand sanitizing stations that are in there. The competition spaces are cleaned in between practices, and for example, if they have chairs, that gets all wiped out. The equipment is sanitized multiple times per day,” Herlihy described.

Scheduling has been adjusted to accommodate sanitation schedule with partners on campus, as well as “limited to no locker room access” for all the players.

Games follow a similar style of precautions, such as mask-wearing, social distancing, hand sanitations and frequent cleaning of equipment.

Herlihy expressed that the athletic department “knew there were going to be challenges trying to play competitions in a health pandemic,” but have learned that “our student athletes have been really resilient.”

“Everybody has just kinda been adaptable, flexible, and we just try to do the best we can everyday,” he said.

Pacer baseball, basketball and soccer teams have all been quarantined throughout the course of the pandemic.

“We have had a few positive tests. We take the quarantine process seriously, because that’s how you’re going to stop it, right? So, just to make sure everybody’s healthy,” Herlihy said.

Student athletes are tested on a “regular basis,” and the basketball teams are tested “every other day” as they are the only sport competing for the university right now.

“But in addition to that,” he continued, “we have an additional step. There’s a re-acclimation period, for seven days.”

Athletes go through a re-acclimation period if they “haven’t been keeping up their fitness level or those kinds of things while they were sick,” to not exacerbate health issues.

When a positive test does come in, Herlihy stated the athletic department is not “hesistant to cancel a practice or postpone a game.”

“ … If you look at our schedule, you’ll see that there has been a number of postpones. Basketball, most of those has been the other team, but we understand that it could be us. Somebody on our teams could get sick, too.”

Herlihy explained that “a few staff members” have tested positive for the virus. “I guess statistically, we’re just like everybody else, we’ve had a few cases. We try to deal with it the best we can.”

“We do it for them,” Herlihy concluded, “as long as the students want us to keep doing it, we’re going to try to keep doing it.”