UPDATE: 8:45 p.m.
Micah Shrewsberry sent out the following tweet Monday evening confirming that he is indeed vaccinated.
To clarify my comments at the press conference today, I am fully vaccinated & encourage those interested to get vaccinated as well. As I said earlier, we have & will continue to educate our team on the benefits of vaccination. Our main focus is to keep our team healthy & safe.
— Micah Shrewsberry (@Coach_Shrews) August 3, 2021
ORIGINAL STORY
Penn State basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry met with the media Monday afternoon by Zoom to discuss how things have been going in the program this summer. But while Shrewsberry was talkative and forthcoming with a lot of information, he chose not to answer one specific question about COVID.
Shrewsberry was asked specifically if he has been vaccinated, and if he could give any updates on where the program stands from a vaccination standpoint.
Shrewsberry would not confirm if he is or is not vaccinated.
That’s his right, obviously. But it did seem a bit strange, given how proactive Penn State has been with COVID awareness for many months.
Football coach James Franklin has spoken often about his preference for people to get vaccinated. Others in the football program have done the same. Franklin even held a press conference at PSU along with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to promote the merits of getting vaccinated.
But Shrewsberry chose not to divulge his own testing status when the Centre Daily Times’ Jon Sauber asked him about it.
“Jon, I am, umm, that’s probably a question I’m not allowed to answer due for medical reasons,” Shrewsberry said. “Like, we won’t — and that’s something that will be consistent throughout this season — we’re not going to release kind of what we’re doing as a program. Just like I said, the main thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to continue to educate our players about what we need to do to stay safe, what we need to do to have the season, to have a successful season and what that looks like.
“So, you know, I continue to lean on our group, our medical staff, our administration, our university that tell us what policies we need to follow. But we won’t talk about our vaccination rate as a staff or as a program. We’re just gonna follow what we need to do to have a season, with people in the stands hopefully.”
College and professional coaches around the country have been getting asked about whether or not they’re vaccinated. Some have chosen to answer yes, while many others have gone the route of saying that’s not something they’ll talk about.
Some college programs and pro teams have been more forthcoming with information. Consider this tweet from Iowa just last week.
Per trainer @Hawkeye_Brad, every player, coach, student manager, and support staff associated with the program has been vaccinated (covid-19) since the start of summer workouts. 💯 💉
— Iowa Basketball (@IowaHoops) July 27, 2021
Penn State’s policy on coaches discussing their own personal COVID situation is unknown. Shrewsberry might have been told not to discuss his vaccination status publicly by university officials, or he may have decided just to keep that information to himself.
Shrewsberry had been asked earlier about potential COVID concerns and said, “You never know, but you have to be prepared for everything.”
“We want to keep everybody safe,” he added. “Those are the conversations that we want to continue to have. We want to continue to educate our team about what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in the country, what’s going on in this community.
“We’re constantly having those conversations with our team to make sure that we’re keeping each other safe.”
