Nebraska basketball team hit with food poisoning

Posted on March 15, 2018 by Robert Mancini

I used to play basketball when I was younger and was MVP in high school. Now I would be lucky if I could dribble the ball properly.

I guess it would be hard to practice when you’re on the verge of barfing.

10/11 Now reports

The Nebraska Wesleyan men’s basketball team had to battle food poisoning Monday, as only nine players practiced with several sick, including Head Coach Dale Wellman.

Wellman said he was forced to sleep in his office while he tried to prepare for the national semifinals.

The Prairie Wolves think it was actually the meal before their Elite 8 win that caused over half the team to get sick.

Nebraska Wesleyan advanced to the Final Four over the weekend and will play on Friday in Salem, Virginia.

That will be the program’s fifth Final Four appearance.

Katie Overbey: March gastro madness

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Ben Chapman

Katie Overbey, a food science graduate student at NC State who focuses on food safety communication and norovirus writes:

Basketball has been on my mind a lot this past week and I’ve wondered a few times what would happen if a team participating in the NCAA tournament fell victim to norovirus? Today, I got my answer.

San Diego State men’s basketball players and coaches got a bit more March Madness than they were counting on this past weekend when members of the team came down with GI illnesses before their game against Duke on Sunday. According to Fox Sports, multiple players, as well as the head coach, experienced symptoms, which sounds like norovirus (but wasn’t confirmed).

The trouble began when senior guard Aqeel Quinn came down with what the team thought was a case of food poisoning after eating a turkey sandwich Thursday.

Head athletic trainer Tom Abdenour said he started hearing that others weren’t feeling well by Saturday evening.

“Coach Fisher said he wasn’t feeling well after practice, then … there’s a text from this one, text from that one,” he said. “It was, ‘Wait a second, what’s going on here?'”

Abdenour said Fisher and assistant coach Brian Dutcher needed IVs on Sunday, while several players told him they weren’t feeling well at breakfast.

Abdenour said radio play-by-play announcer Ted Leitner was also battling the bug.

“That’s not fun to deal with that, but that had no impact on how we competed, what we did, how we played,” Fisher said. “That had no bearing on it.”

Intense GI distress of the norovirus variety doesn’t usually leave me in peak physical condition.

Over 20 hospitalized; food poisoning hits European U20 woman’s basketball championship in Hungary

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Douglas Powell

lovewomensbasketball.com, which would be a favorite site if it was lovewomenshockey.com, reports that hosting European U20 Championship before hosting EuroBasket is most often done to help the preparation for the big tournament.

It’s a trial by fire for EuroBasket Women 2015 hosts Hungarians who are hosting this year’s European U20 Championship in Division A as there appears to be a food poisoning outbreak in Debrecen among the participants.

According to various reports there were 20 to 22 players hospitalized by yesterday’s morning. Portugal had to play with only 6 players against Turkey as the rest of the team were ill and some of the players who played were under the weather. Serbia were without 4 players. Even the coaches have suffered from the poisoning as Serbian head coach Radenko Varagic had to sign release forms to take full responsibility of his health and be released from hospital in order to coach his team.

Ana Jokovic, vice president in charge of women’s basketball development at the Serbian Basketball Federation, was quoted as saying, P”reliminary results indicate salmonella poisoning, but everything should be determined by Tuesday. In my experience in youth competitions nothing like this has never happened. Organizers have made a huge error and FIBA did not react to this. […] FIBA doesn’t care for all of this, and they will not care while the team has five players to play the game. I really do not want to comment on their behavior. We will file a complaint anyway. I’d just like to thank the girls as a whole who have had the will to play in these moments, and I will not even talk about great results, as they have already done enough.”

Careful cleaning up barf: 242 sickened with norovirus at a boys’ basketball tournament, Kentucky, Feb. 2012

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Basketball would be more interesting with full body contact; although full vomiting counts.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that on February 6, 2012, the Kentucky Department for Public Health was notified by a local health department of multiple cases of vomiting and diarrhea among participants in a statewide, 7th grade boys’ basketball tournament that was held February 3–5.

Among 52 participating teams, 49 (94%) teams (comprising 573 players) were contacted. Thirty-six teams (73%) reported at least one ill player. Sixty-two employees were identified who had worked at the tournament, and 46 (74%) were interviewed. A total of 242 persons with acute gastroenteritis were identified and interviewed, including 154 (27%) of the 573 players, 12 (26%) of the 46 employees, 11 coaches, and 65 spectators (the total numbers of coaches and spectators attending could not be determined). Nineteen (8%) persons with AGE had sought medical care, including two children who were hospitalized. Three persons from three separate teams had experienced illness onset before the tournament, and one had vomited courtside in a crowded gymnasium on the first night of the tournament. The vomitus was cleaned up by tournament attendees, and janitorial staff members were notified 3 days later. Symptom onset occurred among 196 (81%) ill persons on days 2 and 3 after the vomiting episode. No common food or water sources were identified as potential vehicles for transmission.

Six stool specimens were collected from five players and one spectator; all tested positive for norovirus. Five were sent to CDC for sequencing, and results yielded the identical genogroup II type 7 (GII.7) strain, a relatively rare norovirus strain. These confirmed cases represented players or spectators from four different teams. The three persons who had arrived at the tournament with gastrointestinal symptoms were unable to provide stool specimens for norovirus testing. However, three of the six confirmed stool specimens came from participants who had played on the court where the vomiting episode occurred.

Clostridium perfringens in tacos fingered as source that sickened 50 at South Dakota basketball game

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Douglas Powell

Laboratory testing by the South Dakota Department of Health has identified Clostridium perfringens as the cause of the outbreak associated with the Pierre-Mitchell high school boys’ basketball game held in Pierre, Jan. 31.

KSFY ABC reports the investigation, which included voluntary questionnaires, implicated tacos as the source food of the outbreak; of those completing questionnaires, 75 per cent who ate the tacos reported becoming ill.

The outbreak follows a similar C. perfringens outbreak in Las Vegas before Christmas in which ham was held at improper temperatures and inadequately reheated, sickening at least 21 people. As noted in the Las Vegas outbreak, the majority of C. perfringens outbreaks are often the results of improperly cooled food or food held at room temperature for extended periods.

Don’t stand so close to me: 2010 norovirus outbreak struck several pro basketball teams

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Douglas Powell

Basketball is mind-numbingly dull to watch. But it can be mildly entertaining if players are vomiting.

A new study describes a 2010 outbreak involving several NBA teams (that’s the professionals, the ones who aren’t playing and no one notices), the first known report of a norovirus outbreak in a professional sports association.

Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online, the study highlights unique circumstances for spreading this highly contagious virus among players and staff on and off the court.

Author Rishi Desai, MD, MPH, and colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that as many as 13 NBA teams located in 11 different states were affected by a norovirus outbreak from November to December 2010. "We confirmed that norovirus spread within at least one team and possibly from one team to another," said Dr. Desai. "Overall, 21 players and three staff from 13 teams were affected."

Rigorous sports schedules and close interactions between athletes and staff put them at increased risk for norovirus infection, the study authors note. Athletes and staff spend a lot of time together in closed spaces—in buses and airplanes, locker rooms, and on the court. Norovirus can spread easily and quickly in such spaces — through the air and on objects and surfaces where it can be infectious for days or weeks. Infected persons can shed billions of virus particles, making it very infective. Even the best hygiene and cleaning may not get rid of the virus since it resists common disinfectants.

Teams can limit norovirus transmission by keeping ill athletes off the court during games and practice, the study suggests, and by avoiding contact with athletes and staff when they are ill and up to 24 hours after recovery. Strict personal hygiene, including handwashing with soap and water, disinfecting common spaces with a sodium hypochlorite solution, and early reporting are critical for limiting transmission.

Norovirus spread through NBA; 13 basketball teams affected***

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Douglas Powell

Sports is about more than showering with other people.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control revealed today that 21 players on 13 pro basketball teams were sickened with norovirus last fall.

The federal researchers didn’t name the teams. But media reports have said players with a stomach bug at the time included four on the Orlando Magic, including star center Dwight Howard.

The virus can spread through the air on the basketball court. But researchers said it more likely was spread by players socializing.

Whatever that means.

Dr. Rishi Desai, one of the CDC investigators, said it’s not clear how the outbreak started, but the strain of norovirus was an unusual enough that investigators believe players got it from each other rather than from family members or others.

CDC officials believe that there may have been at least two instances in which an infected team passed it to a healthy team. The CDC recommended that in the future, NBA players sick with the virus should not play or take part in team activities.

NCAA swimming and diving delaying because of barf

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Basketball is interminably dull.

The first college game I ever went to on Jan. 30, 2008, Kansas State beat the University of Kansas – who went on to win the national crown – for the first time in 24 years.

All games should be like that. They’re not.

But I’ll watch tonight as K-State goes up against Xavier in a sweet-16 showdown, the first time K-State has been to that particular dance since 1988.

What would be a great storyline is if West Virginia met K-State for the final. Bob Huggins was rescued from career oblivion when they hired him as coach a few years ago. Huggins repaid K-State’s generosity by leaving after one year.

Locals are still upset.

But he left behind assistant coach Frank Martin, who’s turned K-State into a national competitor. The prodigy going up against the mentor. It would be like me and Chapman going on an all-nerd food safety Reach for the Top (trivia note: Chapman was actually on Reach for the Top or whatever the Ontario version was called when he was in high school).

In other NCAA news, the start of the Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships has been delayed 24 hours to Friday after 18 student-athletes and a coach were treated for a possible gastrointestinal illness since arriving in Columbus, Ohio.

K-State’s Bramlage Coliseum would make an excellent hockey arena.

Bryant will play for Lakers while barfing

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant has a stomach illness but is expected to play against the Orlando Magic.

Lakers coach Phil Jackson said before Sunday’s game that Bryant would likely play despite being a little late to the game because of the illness.

It was unclear how Bryant contracted the illness, although Jackson speculated that the All-Star likely ate something that didn’t sit well.

Sports types stricken with foodborne illness

Posted on February 27, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Mr. Eva Longoria, professional basketball player Tony Parker, missed San Antonio’s game against Houston on Friday night because of what was thought to be foodborne illness.

Parker missed the morning shootaround and remained ill in the hours before the game.

Meanwhile, the U.K. Tottenham Spurs’ Champions League bid is in danger of being derailed by a sickness bug – again.

Boss Harry Redknapp said,

"We had a few down with it the other day. Vedran Corluka had the virus and Wilson Palacios was not feeling great with it either. We closed down the training ground and although we trained there, everything else is off limits – the offices and the cafeteria. There will be no food or anything. We just got out on the pitch and got out of there. Other than that it’s closed down completely.

Four years ago Spurs were set to finish in the top four under former boss Martin Jol until the squad was caught up in Lasagnegate.

Ten players were affected by illness before their final match at West Ham and although club officials at first blamed a dodgy lasagne it later transpired they had been affected by a norovirus.

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