There’s good news today coming from Long Beach State Athletics. Both men’s and women’s basketball teams are meeting with Andy Fee and the athletics director is telling them about initiating a return to activity plan.
The first phase will be a two-week quarantine followed by rounds of testing. If all goes well the Beach could be practicing again on October 1.
“It will be a phased introduction, but it’s something,” Fee said. “We need good news. Things are going the right way so I’m excited.”
The basketball teams will serve as a sort of test case for the rest of the fall/spring sports that are scheduled to return to competition in late January.
“The L.A. public health officials did approve us to being outdoor activities and now it’s just up to us put that into play,” Fee said.
The CSULB Student Health Center will handle the testing in two weeks, and then the outdoor activity will continue for at least two weeks before the basketball teams can return to Walter Pyramid. Fee said they might utilize outdoor hoops on tennis courts or parking lots.
“We’re going to be creative to get it back up and running,” he said. “It’s going to look a little weird but we’ll make the best of it.”
Many of the LBSU basketball players are already in the dorms and attending online classes.
“After class I usually just try to work out in my room,” LBSU sophomore Romelle Mansel said. “A lot of core workouts. Depending on the day I go on runs on campus… other than that I just get food, chill and play video games.”
Fee is reiterating to both basketball teams that they have a big responsibility to keep their COVID-19 tests coming back negative.
“What they do or don’t do will have an effect on how much activity we can have this year,” he said. “We’ve done all the planning we can do and put the support structures into place. Ultimately it comes down to them making good choices. If there are positive tests we’ll have limited to no activity.”
Fee also reiterated that moving in the right direction means the people on campus need to stay diligent.
“I think a lot of people understand that we have to buckle down harder than ever,” Fee said. “We can’t let this good news stop us from doing things like wearing a mask, social distancing and hand hygiene.”
Listen to Fee and Mansel provide more details on this episode of the LB Fee Show:
S4E59 – Hoop Talk With Andy Fee And Romelle Mansel by lbsuathletics
Good news in 2020?! Yes, we have some! We go all in on hoops talk on the pod as Andy tells the guys how we plan on returning to basketball by the official NCAA start date, including news about an imminent return to outdoor activities, and then sophomore Romelle Mansel joins as our guest to talk about his experiences in the pandemic and readiness to return to the court!
