Sterk on what's next for Mizzou, SEC football

More than two months after college sports and athletics around the country promptly shuttered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Missouri athletics staffers are starting to go back to work. While that likely won’t do much to appease sports-starved fans or those worried about the future of the fall football season, it’s a step in the right direction. And while the theme of Missouri athletics director Jim Sterk’s virtual press conference with local media members Thursday was that he would like to wait as long as possible to make any definitive decisions about whether a football season will happen and what that could look like for the Tigers, Sterk said a few important steps toward a return to sports could happen in the coming weeks.

The next date to circle will be May 22, when the presidents and chancellors from all 14 SEC schools will discuss when to allow student-athletes to return to campuses to train. As of now, Missouri is planning to bring some student-athletes, including football players, back to Columbia June 1, which is the first day doing so would be allowed since the conference banned all in-person athletics activities through May 31.

“June 1 is the first time where we can, right now, the way it stands, would be the first time that we could repopulate and have workouts in the gyms and fields and things like that, weight rooms,” Sterk explained. “And the 22nd, I think the presidents and chancellors have a call, a meeting, and they’ll decide whether to stay with that date or to adjust that date. So that’s where we are right now.”

Sterk said SEC leaders wanted as much time and information as possible before voting on when athletes could return to campuses, and he stressed that the June 1 target date could well change, even a little more than a week in advance. However, if it does, it won’t be because Missouri doesn’t have students on campus. The University of Missouri system announced last month that all classes would be taught online during the summer sessions, but Sterk said a lack of in-person classes doesn’t mean campus is closed. As long as campus is open, athletics could theoretically take place, even in the fall.

“If a school is online, it doesn’t necessarily prevent athletic events from happening,” Sterk said. “If a campus is operational, then we could possibly have athletic events.”

Missouri has started the process of getting campus operational without students, and Sterk said athletics took the lead in doing so. Some staff members have begun working from offices, particularly in the South End Zone complex. Sterk said head football coach Eli Drinkwitz has had his assistants on the offensive side of the ball come into the office during the mornings and defensive assistants in the afternoons in order to avoid too much contact.

Before entering the office each day, Sterk said every staffer has his or her temperature taken by a member of the training staff. So far, there hasn’t been any concern about a positive diagnosis. Sterk said the rest of Missouri’s faculty is set to start repopulating campus May 20.

“I think it’s been going well so far,” he said. “We want to work in cooperation with the university and do it in a respectful way and a safe way, and anybody that feels uncomfortable, that can work at home or feels at risk, then we're asking them not to come.”

Sterk acknowledged that the department would likely have to take additional precautions once student-athletes return to campus, including possibly testing each player upon his or her arrival. However, he doesn’t yet know the specifics of what that would look like, nor could he answer what it would mean if one or more student-athletes tested positive — whether it would be enough to quarantine those individuals or halt in-person activities for the entire team. He also believes that, should any athlete feel uncomfortable returning, the coaches would be understanding.

“The student-athlete side, that’ll be another level, if you will, because they’re going to be coming from different areas,” Sterk said. “How long do we quarantine? Do we have everyone take a test? We haven’t determined all that yet, and I’ll take advice from the medical officials on the best way to do that.”

Sterk said football and men’s and women’s basketball are the only sports that hold mandatory practices during the summer months, though he didn’t clarify whether athletes from other sports would be permitted to return on June 1. He did assuage some of the concern that Missouri might have to cut down on the number of sports it sponsors due to budget constraints. Sterk is anticipating a roughly 20 percent downturn in season ticket sales and donations, and he said he’s still wrestling with the budget, but he doesn’t anticipate any non-revenue sports will be on the chopping block.

Sterk did, however, say that the department will need to find some further cost-cutting measures to make up for the loss of revenue. Sterk and five coaches, including Drinkwitz and basketball coach Cuonzo Martin, already volunteered to take 10 percent cuts to their salaries. One possible adjustment mentioned by Sterk would be more regionalized scheduling by non-revenue sports.

“We need to make adjustments to our budget,” he said, “but we're still a ways away from that.”

For both the athletic department and its fans, though, the priority right now is football. And while decisions should be made soon about when football players can return to campuses, Sterk couldn’t make any definitive statements about whether or not there will be a schedule in the fall — nor is he close to being able to do so. He said the leaders at each SEC school want to take their time before issuing any sort of definitive statement, possibly waiting as long as mid July.

Sterk approves of that timeline. If at that point the conference decided to move forward with its football season, there would still be lots of questions to answer — whether full schedules will be played, how many fans will be in the stands, what to do if some teams play more games than others — but Sterk and other administrators would certainly rather grapple with those questions rather than how to stay fiscally afloat without football.

“It'll be the middle of July, probably, before anyone really makes a decision on the fall,” Sterk said. “So we've got a couple months yet to go and see where things are and then make the best decisions possible by that time.”