Fresno State’s sports teams are competing despite COVID. How the Bulldogs keep up with testing

At this time a year ago, the coronavirus had shuttered everything; a full stop. But over the past few months, Fresno State has had student-athletes from all 21 of its sports programs on campus, practicing and playing games, competing during a global pandemic that has claimed more than 549,000 lives in the U.S., more than 58,000 in California, more than 3,200 in the central San Joaquin Valley.

Football has started spring practices. Women’s soccer, another fall sport, is in season. The women’s basketball team made it to the NIT, beating Missouri before a season-ending loss to Rice. Women’s volleyball, another fall sport, is going, as are baseball and softball, golf and tennis.

How exactly do they make that work?

Testing obviously is a critical component, but with 21 teams and more than 600 student-athletes, coaches and support staff, some tested up to three times per week, it’s a constant challenge just to maintain a schedule.

“You have to be very nimble,” said Carrie Coll, senior associate athletics director for sport services. “That’s hard, especially for a lot of our Type A personality coaches and other people who like a lot of structure. You can plan for something, but then to know that we might have to adjust or alter or delay or anything that goes along with that.”

That’s not the best fit for Mike Batesole, the Bulldogs’ baseball coach, who has won more than 800 career games and a national championship in 2008, over-preparing for just about everything.

But baseball is Exhibit A on how quickly things can change when COVID-19 is in the equation.

The Bulldogs had an opening series at UC Irvine postponed due to contact tracing protocols within the program, and it appeared it would be more than two weeks before they could play a first game. But then CSU Bakersfield lost a series at Utah Valley due to contact tracing and quarantine procedures in the Wolverines’ program, and a little more than 24 hours later the Roadrunners were on a bus heading up the 99 to play the Bulldogs. The three-game series was put together in a matter of hours, and a big piece was coronavirus testing protocols.

Last weekend, Fresno State was able to add two baseball games at Stanford after the Cardinal had a series against CSU Bakersfield canceled after the Roadrunners paused all baseball operations due to health and safety protocols.

“I think what we’re preparing for is it’s going to be different every day,” Batesole said, after that opener. “Every day we show up almost what we thought was going to happen, something else happens.”

COVID-19 testing is at the core of success

For the student-athletes, it’s fairly simple. The testing is done at the Save Mart Center in the mornings. They walk in and are tested, mostly through clinician-collected nasal swabs for PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests.

“It’s a quick, fast process,” said Matt Lawson, a defensive tackle on the football team. “We get in and get out.”

The toughest part of it is the nasal swab, the test itself, Lawson said.

“It’s one of the few times you can say stay negative and it’s a good thing,” softball coach Linda Garza said.

The Bulldogs’ programs are in one of four categories (High Risk in season, High Risk out of season, Intermediate Risk, Low Risk) and test results usually are back within six to 12 hours, allowing time to start isolation or quarantines or adjust rosters and travel schedules, if necessary.

A high-risk sport would be one with close contacts – football, basketball, water polo, wrestling.

Since September, Fresno State has run more than 14,000 tests on its student-athletes and coaches and staff, including testing during the football season that was paid for by the Mountain West Conference.

They run through 500 to 600 tests per week.

The university has contracted with Valley Children’s Hospital, and is covering the cost of testing for its on-campus community including its student-athletes through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, part of the CARES Act that was passed by Congress last March.

But for Kelli Eberlein, the associate athletics director for sports medicine, and a staff including seven associate directors of sports medicine, graduate assistant athletics trainers and interns, the spreadsheet they use to track the testing cadence of student-athletes and teams can change quickly.

“We’re constantly moving testing groups around as travel plans change or a multi-team event we are competing in might add a team or make a schedule change that requires us to test during the road trip,” Eberlein said.

“There have been a lot of shortened seasons so teams will add a game at the last minute that might require us to test our team or our visitor coming in might need our help to get a test in to stay on cadence or to be able to go on to their next game. As student-athletes or staff come out of their 90 days post-COVID they need to resume their testing cadence so we have to always be aware of where they are in that regard, as well.”

The baseball series against Bakersfield came together quickly because both schools had compatible testing protocols; in similar fashion, the Bulldogs’ women’s basketball team had played the Roadrunners on short notice in January.

Maintaining flexibility, with coronavirus in equation

The men’s basketball program, which had to pause three times following positive coronavirus tests or due to contact tracing protocols, had to adjust its schedule several times. Softball had opponents drop out of multi-team events. Volleyball had to alter its travel schedule for a series and cancel the first of two matches at Colorado State.

The Bulldogs’ football program is testing three times a week, in waves.

“I think it’s probably one of the toughest jobs there is on campus right now, being in the sports medicine area, our training staff because there’s still the injuries, there’s still the maintenance, the rehab, there’s all those things that happen, but there’s the COVID end of it, too,” football coach Kalen DeBoer said.

Prodded for one adjective, Eberlein chose, “unrelenting.”

“The past 12 months have been a nonstop, high level of synthesizing complex information and constant monitoring, decision-making and responding to cases and rapid contact tracing,” Eberlein said.

Before playing a non-conference opponent, Fresno State has schools provide attestation forms, one to schedule the contest and one within hours of the game.

The first outlines a school’s testing cadence and ensures that if a school tests regularly at a level below Fresno State that it meets its cadence the week before the event. The second is completed after testing results are in, and daily health screenings and temperature checks have been done on every member of the travel party and are negative.

For games or matches against Mountain West Conference opponents, the medical staffs from both schools will share testing results in a weekly spreadsheet.

“It has been an incredible undertaking,” Coll said.

Then, there are the travel protocols with additional safety measures in place.

A team that usually takes one bus on a trip might now take two in order to spread out and properly social distance, or a team with a small roster that usually travels by van might take a charter bus.

Teams might also fly to a destination that in other years they would drive to in order to limit the time the traveling party is in close contact.

But, on buses, masks stay on. Teams do not eat in restaurants – every meal a grab-and-go, eaten in their hotel rooms. Some teams that have to fly have added face shields along with masks for more protection.

Once at the team hotel, everyone is on lockdown for the most part.

Winning through the protocols and testing

When a team goes on the road, the athletics trainer or coach, if the team doesn’t travel with a trainer, takes along a “COVID” bag, which includes testing materials and PPE in the event anyone develops symptoms.

Through the COVID-19 testing, travel restrictions, quarantines and everything else, Haley Cavinder was the Mountain West Conference women’s basketball player of the year; Hailey Dolcini pitched a perfect game in a victory over Sacramento State, the first for the Fresno State softball program since 2015; Golfer Tommy Stephenson was medalist at the Bandon Dunes Championship; wrestlers DJ Lloren and Kyle Parco qualified for the NCAA championships; and the women’s water polo team is ranked No. 9 in the nation, among other notable accomplishments.

“I don’t think there has ever been a time we’ve required so much of our students to remain accountable not only to themselves but to their community while also trying to perform at the highest level both in the classroom and athletically,” athletics director Terry Tumey said.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the efforts and the work that our student-athletes have done to maintain the health and safety of our community through all of the protocols and procedures necessary for testing and all of the other aspects just to be able to compete for the university. From that point of view it has been a very rewarding exercise, to see the growth of each individual and how they’ve maintained a certain level of excellence just in the accountable approaches they’ve taken. They’ve done the university proud in that way.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2021 at 5:00 AM.