A wide range of topics were discussed concerning how the Angelo State University athletics department, and the campus population as a whole, plans to deal with handling things this fall during the COVID-19 pandemic in a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon.

This comes on the heels of the Lone Star Conference’s announcement this past Friday that the start of practice for all fall sports will not begin until Aug. 24 at the earliest and competitions won’t begin before Sept. 21.

Rebekah Brackin, ASU’s Director of Communications and Marketing, served as the moderator during Wednesday’s town hall meeting.

Brackin asked ASU Athletic Director James Reid who is making the decision of whether or not there will be fall sports.

“Ultimately, the NCAA has the final vote,” Reid said. “Obviously as an NCAA Division II institution, we are a member of the NCAA. The government structure that is in place for items such as this in dealing with championships in sports and things of that nature, is such that it has to move through several committees — one of which is the championships committee, and that is the committee that actually oversees and conducts championships throughout the year for our student-athletes.

“Eventually as it moves through the committees it ends up with the council of presidents, which is made up of presidents from all the conferences in Division II and they have the final vote. Based upon those decisions that come down from the national office, the Lone Star Conference and our member schools will then take the information that we’re given from the NCAA and work to fit it in our athletic programs and our seasons, as long as we’re complying with those guidelines.”

Naturally, one of the first questions people want to ask is how many fans will be allowed at ASU games and what will the seating be like for football at LeGrand Stadium at 1st Community Credit Union Field?

“That’s a good question and I’ve had the question posed to me many times over the last four or five months,” the ASU athletic director said. “Obviously, we want fans there and our student-athletes want fans there. They enjoy playing in front of the ‘Ram Fam.’ 

“What that looks like ultimately is dictated by what the state of Texas will allow. Currently, guidelines are allowing for 50% capacity. We’re obviously hoping that by the time we get to games that we will have the ability to have more than 50% there.”

And how close together will the fans be?

“As far as seating arrangements are concerned, we’re obviously going to comply with all CDC (Center for Disease Control) and health guidelines regarding the social distancing requirements,” Reid said. 

“We will make sure that we educate those who choose to come to our venues about what the guidelines and recommendations are. And then, obviously, we’ll be constantly monitoring this throughout the events and making sure that social distancing is being practiced. Our goal is to have as many of the Ram Fam as we can in the stands.”

After looking at how other universities came up with a plan as far as tickets, ASU will be forced to do things differently this season.

“We have decided to sell game-day general admission tickets only this year, so we won’t have season tickets available this year,” Reid said. “It will just be general admission and game-day tickets so that we can comply with the social distancing aspect of putting people in the stands.”

The ASU staff is hopeful that Ram Jam, a popular game-day extravaganza that serves as a warm-up act for home football games on Saturdays, won’t have to be canceled this fall.

“We love Ram Jam and our fans love Ram Jam,” ASU Development Officer Kevin Pepper said. “So once the football schedule was solidified, we’ll monitor the COVID-19 environment just like we do with everything else and make sure we can have Ram Jam in a safe and healthy way.

“We’ll monitor and follow the guidelines from the state and local government, as well as university policies. Ram Jam is important to our culture and we want to continue this popular tradition, but do it in a way that’s safe for our alumni, fans and friends.”

The ASU athletic director talked about what happens if an ASU athlete, coach, trainer, cheerleader or anyone associated with the department tests positive for the virus.

“That’s obviously a question we get a lot from some of the parents of our student-athletes and how we’re going to handle everything,” Reid said. “And what I can say is that our risk-management team, along with our campus administration, our local health professionals, along with the guidance from the Lone Star Conference and the NCAA, we’ve put together some stringent policies and procedures regarding COVID-19.

“These include: pre-arrival screens, daily wellness screens, testing procedures and obviously isolation and quarantine for any positives if necessary. We have a very thorough plan in place, not only for our student-athletes and coaches, but this is campus-wide. It’s for our entire student body and our campus community.”

ASU’s athletic director expanded on that.

“It’s a plan that we feel keeps the safety of our students, faculty and staff at the forefront and we feel like it’s a great plan,” Reid said. “Obviously as we begin moving through things, we might have to pivot and shift but it’s been vetted and based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s a very solid plan to keep our kids and our on-campus community as a whole safe.”

Reid wants the ASU athletic department to be as knowledgable as possible about contact tracing in COVID-19 issues and he required everyone on the staff and all of the coaches to complete a seven-hour course through John Hopkins University.

“Obviously, within the athletic department what I wanted them to be able to do was to be educated about the COVID-19 issues and how they come into play when we start talking about grouping our athletes for practices and workouts and training situations, and how to maximize the safety and well being of all the parties involved,” Reid said. “All of this is done to allow our student-athletes to continue to do what they love to do, which is play.”

ASU’s student-athletes will not lose scholarship money due to COVID-19 or cancellations. 

“Our bylaws set forth for our institution by the NCAA prevent that from happening,” said Joe’L Sefcik, an Associate Athletic Director for Academic Services/Senior Women’s Administrator. “It protects the student-athletes to where they have a year contract and we’re not able to reduce those for a situation such as this. 

“We believe in making sure that our student-athletes have what they need for in the classroom and in their field of competition. So anything that we can do to help with that we will. We are the Ram family and we protect our own.”

More information is available at angelo.edu/commitment

Charles Bryce is a journalist covering sports in West Texas. Send him a news tip at cbryce@gannett.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.