Photo taken by Kollin Washington.

By Miles Johnson, Sports Editor

The Omicron variant has been running rampant with an average of over 670,000 new cases per week across the country and 18,000 new cases in Georgia. For the safety of the students, Morehouse College came to the conclusion that the school will delay its in-person classes for two weeks; they will now start on Jan. 31st. 

Curtis Campbell, the director of Morehouse Athletics spoke on the current state of sports at the school following the recent rise in COVID 19 cases.

“Pushing back residential move-in to Jan. 25th, will not interfere with spring sports, and we are currently competing in basketball,” Campbell said. “So, as things stand right now intercollegiate sports will not be impacted by the delay.”

Morehouse previously had to postpone two basketball games scheduled during the first week of the New Year. Both games against Central State University and Kentucky State College got delayed until Jan. 10th and Jan.12th.

With the emergence of the Omicron variant, COVID 19 is spreading at a rapid pace and Morehouse will continue to have all student-athletes and athletic staff participate in the same testing protocols as the general campus community. This includes a rapid test weekly and random PCR test.

Last semester, Morehouse was able to keep all in-person sports active without having to worry about COVID putting anything on pause. This included both football and cross country. However, there were some student-athletes that did contract COVID during their seasons, and were forced to quarantine away from the rest of the team. 

“With more teams competing in the spring the chances of a student-athlete missing a game/meet/match increases,” Campbell said. 

Morehouse’s first volleyball team in school history has their home opening game on Jan. 18th against Life University. The baseball season will start February 8th, the first golf match of the season will be Feb. 19th, and the first track and field meet will be Feb. 23rd.

The basketball team’s next game is an away game at 7:30 pm today against Central State University. The Maroon Tigers are currently riding on a four game win streak and have improved to 7-6 on the season.