CEDAR CITY, Utah -- The Southern Utah University Athletic Department has announced that proper policies and procedures are in place to bring student-athletes back to campus, with in-person voluntary workouts beginning on Monday, June 15. 

"We have worked tirelessly on the best way to safely get our student-athletes back to campus, and we wanted to make sure we were as thorough as we could possibly be," SUU Deputy Athletic Director Todd Brown said. "This was a total team effort, and there are a lot of people responsible for making this happen, but the bottom line is that we are thrilled that we can start bringing our athletes back to campus in the next couple weeks and start pushing towards the fall. We worked closely with University leadership, state and local leadership, along with campus health officials to ensure that student-athlete well-being is our top priority, along with our coaches, staff and the entire community. This plan is the foundation on which we will build to ensure that we can return our student-athletes back to competitions." 

There will be a number of precautions taken to ensure the health and safety of the student-athletes. Upon return to Cedar City, student-athletes will be placed in a quarantine period with symptom monitoring each day. 

As part of the phasing structure, student-athletes residing in Cedar City or the state of Utah will be allowed to start voluntary workouts on June 15, while those that are out of state will be able to start on June 22. 

The initial phase-in plan will allow student-athletes from the following programs to be back on campus by June 22: football, men's basketball, gymnastics, soccer and volleyball. Assuming that this phase-in is successful, plans will be put in place for all student-athletes to return through the month of July.  

For the first two weeks the student-athletes are back on campus all workouts will take place outside, and daily screenings will be done before they are able to participate. Proper social distancing measures will be implemented during these voluntary workouts as well. 

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