Alabama Issues Players Apple Watches

From The Athletic

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In his first media availability since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down spring football, Alabama coach Nick Saban dropped a nugget of information that immediately became a talking point around college football Thursday afternoon.

When addressing how Alabama’s new strength and conditioning coaches David Ballou and Matt Rhea were fitting in as the answer to the much-publicized exit of Scott Cochran to Georgia, Saban noted that they equipped Crimson Tide players with Apple Watches for the players’ training away from campus.

“They were very instrumental in setting up this whole program of what we’re doing with the players in terms of Apple Watches for their workouts, apps on their phones for weight training programs,” Saban said. “We had an issue with some players not having a place to work out because high schools are closed. We put them on band workout programs. They’ve done a really, really good job of managing this to this point, and the players have done a really good job responding to it.”

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Alabama is stating they are only using them to monitor their player's health and sleeping habits, not using them to monitor workouts or communicate during workouts which would be impermissible. Other schools are complaining they can't afford or their administration won't allow them to do this.

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