Kansas Athletics reports zero positive results in latest round of COVID-19 testing

By Matt Tait     Jul 28, 2020

Nick Krug
An aerial shot from the east of David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium in 2017.

Kansas Athletics on Tuesday night released the results of its most recent round of COVID-19 testing, which yielded zero positives in 156 tests.

The testing, which included 136 athletes, took place last Saturday. KU did not provide a sport-by-sport breakdown of the athletes who were tested. But a large number of them were likely football players.

On July 22, one day before KU’s football program resumed its voluntary offseason conditioning activities, Kansas Athletics announced four positive results from 90 football players who were tested on July 18.

In addition to the 136 tests administered to KU’s fall sports student-athletes last weekend, Tuesday’s news release indicated that 20 staff members, “with positions that require frequent student-athlete interaction” also were tested.

The news of zero positive tests on KU’s campus comes three days after KU officials announced that the start of the 2020 college football season had been moved up to Aug. 29 after KU scheduled a replacement game with Southern Illinois following New Hampshire’s cancellations of its fall sports seasons.

Opening the season a week earlier than previously scheduled also moved up the first day of the KU football program’s preseason camp, which is now slated to begin Friday.

According to the release, last Saturday’s most recent round of testing — at least the fifth conducted by KU since athletes returned to campus in mid-June — was part of “the ongoing maintenance procedures implemented by Kansas Team Health.”

In addition to football, athletes from KU’s volleyball, women’s soccer and cross country programs have been working out on campus throughout the past several weeks in preparation for the start of their seasons.

The KU men’s basketball team is slated to welcome back its players on Sunday, with team workouts scheduled to begin on Monday.

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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.