With Purdue starting training camp on Friday and the season opener a month away, the push for vaccinations among football players continues.
Purdue has not mandated that students get vaccinated. Still, A.D. Mike Bobinski says the football team has around a 90 percent vaccination rate. Even with that high rate, the specter for a COVID breakout looms, which could compromise the roster and maybe lead to the Boilermakers being unable to play a game this fall.
“We continue to encourage it, we continue to show the upside of why it's helpful not only personally, but for the team and for the continuity of play and competition and all of that,” Bobinski told GoldandBlack.com. “So, you never know. But we are continuing to try to just encourage people to think really hard about getting vaccinated.”
If a player is not vaccinated, he will be subjected to regular testing.
“It's a minimum of once a week and may be more than once a week,” said Bobinski. “So, you'll have to continue to be tested. … You’ll also still be subject to contact-tracing, if you're unvaccinated, which means a 14-day quarantine if you're around somebody that becomes positive with the virus. So, that's a significant issue.”
Vaccinated players won’t be subjected to testing unless they become symptomatic, according to Bobinski.
“If you’re vaccinated, no regular testing,” said Bobinski. “We have an indoor mask policy that Purdue has implemented at this point again. I think everybody's hope, Purdue's included, is that will be something that we'll implement here for a period of time and hopefully that will resolve here at some point. I can't predict when or how. But vaccinated players will have some more freedoms than the unvaccinated.”
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Staffing Ross-Ade amid a pandemic
Businesses across the nation struggle to fill jobs amid the pandemic. But Bobinski doesn’t anticipate Purdue having issues with staffing Ross-Ade Stadium this fall.
“I don't believe so,” he said. “No more so than the issues that we always have. It is not always easy to fully staff the stadium operations for game day. Our third-party folks, our security company, Landmark Event Staffing, they work hard to find people in the local area. And if they have to go to Indy or wherever to supplement, they do. Our concessionaire has a pretty good established pipeline of groups and other people that work. So, I think we'll be fine there.”
A new endeavor this year: Purdue will run its own parking operations.
“We are working to staff up on that front,” said Bobinski. “That's not simple, but we're making progress in that area and I think we'll end up in a good place. But we think we'll have it covered by the time we kick off here.
“For me, I think about parking, in lots of cases, it's the first contact point of a fan coming to the game, particularly in the lots that we run and control. And so you want to make sure it's done really well, and that people have a good first impression, that it's smooth, it's efficient and it's friendly, all that.”
New Deputy A.D. Ken Halpin starts soon
New Purdue deputy AD Ken Halpin is slated to start work on Monday, Aug. 9. Among his duties: Sport administrator for men's basketball.
“What I think he'll bring to our department and our efforts, he's had five-plus years as a sitting athletic director (at Winthrop),” said Bobinski. “He understands the decision-making, the challenges, the opportunities, kind of the way a department needs to get put together."
Halpin will replace Jason Butikofer, who left for a similar position at Washington in March 2020.
“So, I think he'll have a lot of perspective and experience across the board for us here that will allow me and (Halpin), in combination, to just cover more ground across our department, particularly in times like this when you're still dealing in an environment that's uncertain, then you got to make judgments oftentimes very quickly.”
Conference tumult
Like everyone, Bobinski was caught off guard when news broke last month about plans for Texas and Oklahoma to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC, with a move perhaps happening as soon as 2022.
"There was no build up, there was no lead up to it," said Bobinski. "It just happened. Anybody in the college athletics world has known for years that the Big 12 has worked hard to try to meet some of the needs that Texas and Oklahoma presented as really the two dominant players from a scope and influence perspective. And that was always sort of a tenuous situation."
Bobinski isn't sure what is next on the horizon of college athletics, which is in the midst of seismic changes with the transfer portal, NIL and potential conference shifting washing over the landscape. Oh, and the NCAA may be teetering on the brink, too.
"Are we in the best possible position that the Big Ten could be at this moment in time?" said Bobinski.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
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