I'm going to start posting this live as I transcribe and will keep updating, and then of course I'll write stories off it for those that don't want to wade through the whole thing.
Mike Bohn on how we got to this point ...
"I think that in the end it was really about an incredible amount of connection to our medical team, and I'm thrilled that Dr. Gamradt is with us today because that group of professionals along with our athletic directors and the coaches and so many members of the Pac-12 Conference office staff, their passion and commitment and professionalism could not have been stronger. I think the coaches in the Pac-12 Conference in my view were as aligned, united and committed to the support of football like I've never seen before. And my hat's all to all of them. They were respectful of each other, they represented all the different views, there was never any judgment, and I think that leadership, that type of collaboration and passion for football emanated obviously through the ADs, the conference office and ultimately the CEOs that represent the chancellors and presidents of the league. I think that's why as much as we are still sick to our stomach today and still troubled and disappointed in the results yesterday, that in the end we just had some incredible people that were in the trenches helping us get through this."
Clay Helton on how he addressed the team ...
"The first thing was just to be empathetic to the situation. We're all disappointed and sad, and I'm disappointed and sad for our players and coaches for the amount of hard work they put in and preparation for a season. Sad for our student population that's having to deal with a pandemic and it interfering with the college experience right now. I told them I'm a father of a 17-year-old that's heartbroken right now because he's not getting to play a junior fall football season, but when you look at it through a father's eyes and you garner the information medically and see not only do you have to respect that information but you've got to support the decisions that are based behind it. That's what our team has done. They know that based on the medical information we have, which I explained to them yesterday and took them through it point by point so they could understand it and be educated, and then I told them I was proud of them. I asked them from March all the way until yesterday that we were on a mission, and that we wanted to separate ourselves by our discipline, our dedication to our craft and the work that we put in each and every day -- and they did that, both staff and players. And now that mission has been changed. In the military you get tasked with a mission, and sometimes conditions aren't right to execute and the mission gets altered. What do you do? You continue to prepare, you continue to train because you know that mission's coming and you've got to be prepared for it. And I was so proud of them -- they woke up today 6:30 and were right back out there preparing for the next opportunity whenever that might be. But just really empathetic to them, proud for them understanding of people's disappointment but knowing that this is the right decision when you put the health and safety of student-athletes first and make that your priority."
Dr. Seth Gamradt on his role and that of the Pac-12 medical advisory ...
"I am part of the Pac-12 student health and well-being initiative board -- basically a representative from each school that we meet at least quarterly every year talking about the health and well-being of our athletes, be it orthopedic injuries, mental health, medical and general medical issues with athletes. Since March, since the epidemic, we've met twice weekly about COVID. I never thought I would become an expert about a virus, but I feel like with all the discussions that we've had I've become one. Not only have we had our 12 board members, but we had a group of epidemiologists, infectious disease experts from across the conference, cardiologists from the across the conference and we all came together as a group to study this illness. So our plan, and we had a great plan that we came up with for the spring and summer, was based on the cornerstone of weekly testing. Every athlete gets tested every week, anyone that becomes symptomatic gets tested and then anyone who has a close contact with some who becomes positive gets tested. Well, that was based on two assumptions -- the first assumption, No. 1, was that we'd be dealing with a decreasing case load in the Pac-12 footprint, and then assumption No. 2 was that COVID-19 was a relatively benign illness for our student-athletes. So the three things that sort of changed, first, No. 1, the case load became higher in the Pac-12 footprint, particularly in Los Angeles and Arizona, making our testing plan for weekly testing perhaps not as robust as what we thought. And the second thing, perhaps the COVID may not be as benign for these student-athletes as we initially thought. The uncertainty around that kind of changed the opinion of the board over the last few weeks."
Bohn on his interaction in addressing student-athletes ...
"Again, I think when you think of our coaches and our staff and our student-athletes, everybody that touches their experience here at USC, they're all critical. So our day really broke down to thinking, OK, we started out with an early morning meeting trying to ascertain exactly where we were in preparation for the CEO call at 11, and obviously that call and the input from our medical professionals. But before that we spent a lot of time trying to prepare to make sure we have all of our information ready to go to our student-athletes, a video of the results that would be ready for them, a message to our staff, a message to our coaches, texts, emails, as I mentioned a personal video. I just felt all of our constituents deserved that, and we wanted to make sure they knew how much they meant to us and how this process was going to unfold and obviously communicating with the conference office and the timing of their piece and how that changed, and having the basketball element really become a surprise. We had really hoped that we would have more time in the day to put it together, but the decision came out that it was going to be out by 1, so all of a sudden you're in a crisis mode of trying to do everything you can to touch base with everybody. I think that was so important to try to get information particularly to our athletes first before they started seeing the reports on ESPN or any other media outlet that they follow. It was just a sense of working a plan but then having to be able to adjust based on different developments with the entire fall being postponed until Jan. 1 for every single sport at USC."
Helton on what the next four to five months look like:
"One, I'd like to thank Mike and President Carol Folt for all the resources that they've provided all 21 sports, let's start there. Since March being able to provide all the services with strength equipment, nutrition to rehab services to academic services, and as we came back on campus those were just amplified. This environment that we're in right now being able to train I think is second to none in the country with what's going on. One, I'm thankful for them that that has happened, but also that it is being allowed to continue -- allowing to continue to train. You've got to shift your calendar. Right now as a conference we've made the decision to not have any sports till Jan. 1, so you shift your calendar not knowing what the future holds but you have to be prepared if and when a season does take place. So our calendar is being worked at right now through coaches, strength and conditioning, medicine, our training staff to be able to put a new offseason calendar together. We've got about two weeks left to get in true physical shape where I think we'll be in great shape. We'll work on some offseason speed and explosiveness in the month of September, October will be a main strength block for us and you go into November and you start working your conditioning and functional football movement and you see where you are in December and what the future holds and where we are not only at USC but worldly. That's what you have to do. You have to prepare, you have to have a plan, put it in place, prepare for if you're called upon. Our kids, I'm proud of them. They were there this morning in preparation for that next step."
Continuing ...
Mike Bohn on how we got to this point ...
"I think that in the end it was really about an incredible amount of connection to our medical team, and I'm thrilled that Dr. Gamradt is with us today because that group of professionals along with our athletic directors and the coaches and so many members of the Pac-12 Conference office staff, their passion and commitment and professionalism could not have been stronger. I think the coaches in the Pac-12 Conference in my view were as aligned, united and committed to the support of football like I've never seen before. And my hat's all to all of them. They were respectful of each other, they represented all the different views, there was never any judgment, and I think that leadership, that type of collaboration and passion for football emanated obviously through the ADs, the conference office and ultimately the CEOs that represent the chancellors and presidents of the league. I think that's why as much as we are still sick to our stomach today and still troubled and disappointed in the results yesterday, that in the end we just had some incredible people that were in the trenches helping us get through this."
Clay Helton on how he addressed the team ...
"The first thing was just to be empathetic to the situation. We're all disappointed and sad, and I'm disappointed and sad for our players and coaches for the amount of hard work they put in and preparation for a season. Sad for our student population that's having to deal with a pandemic and it interfering with the college experience right now. I told them I'm a father of a 17-year-old that's heartbroken right now because he's not getting to play a junior fall football season, but when you look at it through a father's eyes and you garner the information medically and see not only do you have to respect that information but you've got to support the decisions that are based behind it. That's what our team has done. They know that based on the medical information we have, which I explained to them yesterday and took them through it point by point so they could understand it and be educated, and then I told them I was proud of them. I asked them from March all the way until yesterday that we were on a mission, and that we wanted to separate ourselves by our discipline, our dedication to our craft and the work that we put in each and every day -- and they did that, both staff and players. And now that mission has been changed. In the military you get tasked with a mission, and sometimes conditions aren't right to execute and the mission gets altered. What do you do? You continue to prepare, you continue to train because you know that mission's coming and you've got to be prepared for it. And I was so proud of them -- they woke up today 6:30 and were right back out there preparing for the next opportunity whenever that might be. But just really empathetic to them, proud for them understanding of people's disappointment but knowing that this is the right decision when you put the health and safety of student-athletes first and make that your priority."
Dr. Seth Gamradt on his role and that of the Pac-12 medical advisory ...
"I am part of the Pac-12 student health and well-being initiative board -- basically a representative from each school that we meet at least quarterly every year talking about the health and well-being of our athletes, be it orthopedic injuries, mental health, medical and general medical issues with athletes. Since March, since the epidemic, we've met twice weekly about COVID. I never thought I would become an expert about a virus, but I feel like with all the discussions that we've had I've become one. Not only have we had our 12 board members, but we had a group of epidemiologists, infectious disease experts from across the conference, cardiologists from the across the conference and we all came together as a group to study this illness. So our plan, and we had a great plan that we came up with for the spring and summer, was based on the cornerstone of weekly testing. Every athlete gets tested every week, anyone that becomes symptomatic gets tested and then anyone who has a close contact with some who becomes positive gets tested. Well, that was based on two assumptions -- the first assumption, No. 1, was that we'd be dealing with a decreasing case load in the Pac-12 footprint, and then assumption No. 2 was that COVID-19 was a relatively benign illness for our student-athletes. So the three things that sort of changed, first, No. 1, the case load became higher in the Pac-12 footprint, particularly in Los Angeles and Arizona, making our testing plan for weekly testing perhaps not as robust as what we thought. And the second thing, perhaps the COVID may not be as benign for these student-athletes as we initially thought. The uncertainty around that kind of changed the opinion of the board over the last few weeks."
Bohn on his interaction in addressing student-athletes ...
"Again, I think when you think of our coaches and our staff and our student-athletes, everybody that touches their experience here at USC, they're all critical. So our day really broke down to thinking, OK, we started out with an early morning meeting trying to ascertain exactly where we were in preparation for the CEO call at 11, and obviously that call and the input from our medical professionals. But before that we spent a lot of time trying to prepare to make sure we have all of our information ready to go to our student-athletes, a video of the results that would be ready for them, a message to our staff, a message to our coaches, texts, emails, as I mentioned a personal video. I just felt all of our constituents deserved that, and we wanted to make sure they knew how much they meant to us and how this process was going to unfold and obviously communicating with the conference office and the timing of their piece and how that changed, and having the basketball element really become a surprise. We had really hoped that we would have more time in the day to put it together, but the decision came out that it was going to be out by 1, so all of a sudden you're in a crisis mode of trying to do everything you can to touch base with everybody. I think that was so important to try to get information particularly to our athletes first before they started seeing the reports on ESPN or any other media outlet that they follow. It was just a sense of working a plan but then having to be able to adjust based on different developments with the entire fall being postponed until Jan. 1 for every single sport at USC."
Helton on what the next four to five months look like:
"One, I'd like to thank Mike and President Carol Folt for all the resources that they've provided all 21 sports, let's start there. Since March being able to provide all the services with strength equipment, nutrition to rehab services to academic services, and as we came back on campus those were just amplified. This environment that we're in right now being able to train I think is second to none in the country with what's going on. One, I'm thankful for them that that has happened, but also that it is being allowed to continue -- allowing to continue to train. You've got to shift your calendar. Right now as a conference we've made the decision to not have any sports till Jan. 1, so you shift your calendar not knowing what the future holds but you have to be prepared if and when a season does take place. So our calendar is being worked at right now through coaches, strength and conditioning, medicine, our training staff to be able to put a new offseason calendar together. We've got about two weeks left to get in true physical shape where I think we'll be in great shape. We'll work on some offseason speed and explosiveness in the month of September, October will be a main strength block for us and you go into November and you start working your conditioning and functional football movement and you see where you are in December and what the future holds and where we are not only at USC but worldly. That's what you have to do. You have to prepare, you have to have a plan, put it in place, prepare for if you're called upon. Our kids, I'm proud of them. They were there this morning in preparation for that next step."
Continuing ...
