With campus closed, sports halted, FSU's Coburn navigates uncharted waters
David Coburn attended Florida State as an undergraduate student in the 1970s and has been working on campus for most of the past decade -- serving nearly two years as athletics director. His wife, Mary, also worked in the FSU administration for years and has a building named in her honor.
In one way or another, Florida State University has been a focal point of Coburn's entire adult life.
He has never seen it quite like this.
As one of a small group of people still working on site -- and that will be ending soon in his case -- Coburn acknowledged Thursday that it's difficult to even wrap his mind around what it's like driving up to the Moore Athletics Center and walking into his fourth-floor office.
"It's very odd," Coburn said. "Very, very odd."
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During a telephone interview with Warchant on Thursday morning, Coburn explained he is only working on campus right now because he doesn't yet have all of the electronic equipment needed to run the department from home.
"It's coming in short order," he said. "Most offices have phones forwarded, and people are working remotely."
Like the rest of the world, it has been a whirlwind two weeks for Coburn.
Exactly 14 days ago, he had to break the news to the No. 4-ranked FSU men's basketball team that its season was essentially over before the postseason began. Since then, it has been one closure after another.
Seasons ended. Players sent home. Many careers cut short.
Coburn even recently learned that one of the Seminoles' student-athletes has tested positive for coronavirus after traveling home.
"We're aware of only one athlete who has been ill with it, and that athlete got it at home from a family member," Coburn said.
The athlete's name has not been made public, but Coburn said the student is recovering from the illness and has not returned to campus.
While the welfare of Florida State's student-athletes and employees is the primary concern, Coburn also has the unenviable task of trying to figure out how this global pandemic is going to impact his athletics department from a financial standpoint.
Earlier this week, he told FSU's Board of Trustees that the Seminoles could lose anywhere from $2 million to $4.5 million in revenue from the cancellations of the ACC and NCAA basketball tournaments, as well as the refunding of ticket sales from spring sports.
And there's absolutely no way to project how things might shake out in the fall, since no one knows when life will return to normal.
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