CHAPEL HILL — Coach Mack Brown knows that by the end of spring practices about 65 percent of the players and nearly all coaching staff members on the North Carolina football team had been vaccinated for COVID-19.
He has been told by the team’s medical professionals an 85-percent vaccination rate must be reached for the Tar Heels to achieve herd immunity within their program and around the Kenan Football Center, their home base of operations.
“So we can take our mask off and get back in our building,” Brown said last week, “and get back to the same meeting rooms we used to have and have team meetings together, instead of spread out all over place, and actually eat back at our training table.”
As for many other coronavirus-connected issues, ranging from what’s coming next month when the NCAA’s recruiting dead period ends to what’s in the works for the protocols that will shape next season, Brown, the Hall of Famer, isn’t exactly sure and hasn’t been fully informed.
After North Carolina navigated an unprecedented college football season last fall marked by considerable uncertainty and ultimately secured an Orange Bowl berth, COVID questions persist as the Tar Heels move toward the summer and additional degrees of normalcy.
Brown, raising both hands above his head to exaggerate shrugging his shoulders, likened it to a guesswork process of searching and feeling for answers, while waiting on clarity to arrive in definitive form.
“We’re all still living in the unknown,” he said. “And I am so tired of hearing with a COVID question, ‘I’m not sure. We’ll have to look at it. Yeah, I don’t know if we’re going to change that or not.’ We’re people who live with routines and we like facts, and right now we’re not able to get all we need.”
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On-campus recruiting returns June 1 from an absence of more than 14 months with the lifting of the NCAA’s longstanding dead period, originally imposed March 13, 2020, the day after the NCAA basketball tournaments were canceled, and then extended eight times across the last year amid the pandemic.
Coaches and recruits haven’t been allowed to meet in person and talk face to face — video calls on the Zoom platform and via FaceTime have become the norm — and so Brown said his North Carolina staff has entered a mode of rethinking what official and unofficial recruiting visits now entail in a climate impacted by coronavirus concerns.
“June is going to be crazy,” he said, “because we can have people back on campus.”
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It’s a prediction that has produced a boatload of pertinent items and potential guidelines to address, such as: How many recruits can visit at one time? Where do they stay in Chapel Hill? Can Brown have them stop by his home? What about masking and social distancing? What are the requirements for negative tests if recruits aren’t vaccinated?
The laundry list goes on and on, Brown said, and includes the matter of prospect camps for high school standouts that the Tar Heels are planning on hosting June 12-13. Brown said his staff spent a number of hours during a recent week mulling “what does camp mean?” with regard to possible masking and testing directives for recruits and parents who might be in attendance.
“We’ve got four fields, so how many can we have spread out?” Brown said, recounting those discussions. “Can we have visiting coaches come in and help us coach? Can they come in and look at our camp if we want to help the young guys that we’re not going to take get scholarships somewhere else?
“There’s just so many new questions, it’s kind of like all of our lives for the last year and a half. Every time we start thinking we know what’s going on, we’ve got to start over and have new stuff coming up. But it’s still exciting that we can get them here.”
North Carolina’s team reconvenes for summer workouts and conditioning later this month. Further down the road, the Tar Heels likely will report to training camp in early August ahead of their 2021 season opener Sept. 3 at Virginia Tech.
Brown wondered aloud last week about COVID protocols in the shorter term and across the longer haul, with an eye on the fall.
“What will change for us this summer?” he said. “How many times will they ask you to be tested? What do we think will happen, even though we understand some of it is dictated by the state? What do we think is going to happen in the fall? Will we still have three tests a week? If you’re vaccinated will you not have tests? When do you have to be vaccinated again?”
So on and so forth, for now.
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Adam Smith is a sports reporter for the Burlington Times-News and USA TODAY Network. You can reach him by email at asmith@thetimesnews.com or @adam_smithTN on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: UNC football coach Mack Brown wants answers with COVID questions looming for summer, fall
