Smackover suspends workouts after athlete tests positive for virus

Smackover has suspended summer workouts and closed its athletic facilities until July 28 due to one of its student-athletes testing positive for the coronavirus.

Smackover had resumed offseason workouts at the start of June after the Arkansas Activities Association ended the dead period stemming from the outbreak of the pandemic in March, but for now, everything is on hold.

“Our Athletic Director David Osborn and coaching staff did a really good job of containing the situation as far as trying to make sure we had the proper PPE (personal protective equipment) in place, been taking roll everyday, making sure that we’re checking for fevers and doing all of those things that we need to be doing,” Smackover-Norphlet Superintendent Jason Black said. “Once we found out, we tried to make sure we got communication out to our community.

“The students were called, and any of the coaches that were close to the situation were called. We also have a district point of contact, nurse Michelle Martisek that works with the Department of Health.

“They were involved and helped us start the contact tracing protocol. Right now, we feel like we’ve done a lot of front-end work to get out in front of the situation. We’re keeping in contact with those parents and those staff members that were in direct contact with the situation.

“For now, we’ve closed all of our athletic facilities for two weeks upon further notice until we hear back from the Department of Health.

“In the meantime, the student testing positive is in our thoughts and prayers and we hope to have all our athletes back working out soon once all is safe.

“We’re going to look and evaluate every situation and see if we can learn from it."

On Monday, the AAA tweeted that it was continuing to plan for the resumption of fall sports even with Governor Asa Hutchinson announcing last week that the first day of school had been pushed back to Aug. 24 over concerns of the coronavirus.