Thursday night, through a series of tweets on the @SIUSalukis twitter page, it was revealed Saluki athletes will begin to return to campus.

On an exclusive Zoom call with Saluki Athletic Scholarship Fund members, SIU Athletic Director Liz Jarnigan announced 50 Saluki student-athletes will arrive on campus on June 20 and begin a week-long quarantine process that includes daily temperature checks, followed by COVID-19 testing and a physical.

The first group of 50 student-athletes will consist of members of the football team, men’s basketball team, and women’s basketball team.  On June 29, those student-athletes will be able to begin voluntary, outdoor workouts.  Once the first group has made it through their gating process, there will be plans for additional groups to follow the same gating procedure in the months of July and August.

The biggest sport in question currently is football with a season-opener at UT-Martin on September 3.  Jarnigan is confident that the season will occur.

“We are going to have a football season.  There may be some adjustments to how that looks but nobody on our staff and nobody in our conference is talking about not playing,” Jarnigan stated.  “My sincere hope is our first home football game will be a celebration of our community coming back together.  We feel a responsibility to do right by our student-athletes, win games and championships and do right by our community.”