Kansas football suspends voluntary workouts after 12 positive COVID-19 tests

By Matt Tait     Jul 3, 2020

Associated Press
Kansas head coach Les Miles watches his players against Texas during an NCAA college football game Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019, in Austin, Texas. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

An uptick in positive COVID-19 tests has led the Kansas football program to suspend its voluntary summer workouts, KU officials announced Friday morning.

Twelve football players have now tested positive for COVID-19 and KU has issued a 14-day self-quarantine requirement for all football players and staff members.

As of Monday, the number of KU football players who had tested positive was at three.

“When we welcomed our young men back to campus a couple of weeks ago for voluntary workouts, even with the policies and procedures in place to try and protect them from becoming infected with the virus, events outside of our control has made the decision to pause these workouts necessary,” KU coach Les Miles said in a statement.

Miles said KU trainers and doctors, through Kansas Team Health, would have daily communication with the players who tested positive in order to monitor the situation.

“We will follow medical recommendations on returning to activities,” he added.

At the conclusion of the 14-day self-quarantine by KU football players, all student-athletes and staff will be retested to determine whether conditioning activities can resume.

“Our priority remains to keep our student-athletes safe and healthy, especially during this pandemic, and we will follow the recommendations of our medical professionals,” KU Athletic Director Jeff Long said in the release. “We will only resume our preparations after the 14-day quarantine is complete and our student-athletes and staff have bene tested for the virus prior to participating in football activities.”

To date, KU has tested 164 student-athletes and received 16 positive tests. According to a Kansas Athletics news release, the four non-football tests came from four other sports.

A little more than two weeks after the football team was welcomed back to campus for voluntary workouts, athletes from the rest of KU’s fall sports rosters, which include men’s and women’s cross country, women’s volleyball, women’s soccer, women’s tennis, women’s rowing, women’s swimming and diving and men’s and women’s golf, were allowed to report to campus for the start of voluntary workouts on Wednesday.

KU officials said in the release that all other fall sports athletes would continue to conduct their voluntary workouts at this time.

“Should positive tests increase, we will follow recommendations from Kansas Team Health and suspend additional sports activities as needed,” the release noted.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.