Friday on CNN’s “New Day, Southeastern Conference Commissioner (SEC) Greg Sankey issued a plea to fans to speak with medical professionals about getting vaccinated rather than “relying” on what they read on the internet or heard from somebody else.
The plea follows a recent tweet by the commissioner in which he called on fans to access the vaccine to reduce the spread and limit the possibility of additional variants emerging.
Host John Berman asked Sankey, “If you told, you know, a bunch of SEC fans that they couldn’t go to a game unless they were vaccinated, what would happen?”
“There would probably be three responses,” Sankey replied.
“One, I think the bulk of our fans who actually attended games are likely vaccinated, so that would be easy,” he continued. “Then there would be those who would react, and they’d rush to access the vaccine to make sure they could be part of the game-day atmosphere. And then there would be a level of anger. And it’s that third part that I think is just the miss. And it’s a contrast to our teams. We started in February with just great doctors who serve on our medical task force, over and over providing information. That doesn’t mean we’re automatically at 100% of our student-athletes accessing the vaccine, but if the people who have stayed away will access information from doctors, from physicians, from first-line workers, I think the stories that were told on CNN this morning were powerful, and I’ve seen the same on other media outlets. Rather than simply relying on what somebody told me or what I read on the internet, access the information. That’s educated our players; that will educate our fans, as well.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent