Stanford Stadium will now be used as “a national model for social-distancing measures if college football resumes in the fall,” Stanford football announced at a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
As part of his position as the chair of the NCAA football rules committee, Stanford head football coach David Shaw ’94 offered his home field as an example of successful measures to limit the spread of the virus. The forward-looking measures were in full effect during the 2019 football season but had been experimented with for some time.
As part of his presentation, it has been reported that Shaw shared pictures from numerous home games in which fans can be seen voluntarily adhering to social distancing warnings by refusing to fill the stadium.
Shaw cautioned that further adjustments would need to be made. For example, the Stanford coach cited the throngs of fans who stormed the field in blue and gold and were seen in close proximity to each other and the players after last year’s Big Game.
Because Stanford’s game-day operations already have experience scaling down, it is expected any transition to social distancing or even a crowd absent of fans would be made with relative ease.
Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
Contact Daniel Martinez-Krams at danielmk ‘at’ stanford.edu.