Hitting close: COVID at FHS
Admirals football player tests positive; nine players, two coaches quarantined
The coronavirus has struck Farragut High School.
While an FHS student/athlete, a football player whose name and year in school were not released, tested positive for the virus Sunday, May 31, according to school athletic director Donald Dodgen, eight other players and two football coaches remain in quarantine.
As of deadline Tuesday, June 2, “He’s OK, he’s in good shape,” Dodgen said about the student/athlete testing positive. “But we have to follow protocol.”
All were involved in a Friday, May 29, football team meeting at FHS — performed in groups of no more than nine players — which has been allowed according to Knox County Health Department Phase 2 guidelines and Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association guidelines.
Eddie Courtney, FHS varsity football head coach, “Brought them in Friday morning to put them in their groups so they could start (working out) Monday (June 1),” Dodgen said. “We had thermometers, we tested everybody that came in. We asked them all the questions. Everybody (seemed) fine.”
To ensure safety in the workout areas and with other team groups, Dodgen said he joined principal Dr. John Bartlett, Courtney and KCHD to take charge of the situation. They temporarily shut down football gatherings until their workouts began Wednesday morning, June 3.
“Late Sunday afternoon we found out, and we put the process in motion,” Dodgen said.
Meanwhile, other FHS fall sports athletic teams continued taking part in KCHD- and TSSAA-allowed conditioning workouts in the school’s Lynn E. Sexton Gymnasium (volleyball) and on their respective fields and stadiums, which includes girls soccer.
They join athletic teams from Hardin Valley Academy, Bearden, Concord Christian School, Knoxville Christian School, Knoxville Catholic, Webb School of Knoxville and Christian Academy of Knoxville who also have begun similar workouts.
