The Pittsburgh Steelers won’t be going back to Latrobe this summer to hold their annual training camp at St. Vincent College because their plan for COVID-19 protocols wasn’t approved by the league, the team announced Thursday morning.
“We are disappointed we won’t be holding our 2021 Training Camp at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa,” said Steelers spokesperson Burt Lauten in a statement released on Thursday morning by the team. “We were prepared to safely host Training Camp on campus with fans, but unfortunately our plan was not approved due to the NFL’s COVID-19 protocols.
“We will now have training camp, which is slated to begin in late July, split between Heinz Field and the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. Once our practice schedule is finalized, we will announce plans to host fans at Heinz Field for a select number of practices.
“We appreciate the support of Saint Vincent College and the Latrobe community, and we look forward to returning to campus in 2022.”
Steelers team president Art Rooney II said most of the offseason that he was optimistic that the team would be able to return to Latrobe for training camp this summer but that obviously now won’t happen. The Steelers did not hold training camp at Latrobe last year due to the pandemic.
It will now be interesting to see what the schedule for Steelers training camp practices at Heinz Field will look like and how many of them will include fans having access. A “select number of practices” sure doesn’t sound like there will be too many.
It will be interesting to see if the NFL provides more insight into what portion of the Steelers COVID plan failed to pass. The Kansas City Chiefs announced that their 2021 training camp will return to Missouri Western State University’s campus in July so some transparency would be nice when it comes to one team being able to practice on a college campus but another.
