Jon Blau

Bloomington Herald-Times

BLOOMINGTON -- Indiana team physician Dr. Larry Rink has been named to a task force that will advise the Big Ten Conference through the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Called the Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases, the group was formally announced Monday but has been working via weekly conference calls to assist the conference and its member institutions with best practices, according to a release. Each conference school is represented on the 14-member panel, which will continue to provide input as the Big Ten takes steps to eventually return to play.

“These are unprecedented times in our world and the focus of any conversation taking place in college athletics right now is the health, safety and welfare of students and the public,” Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said in a statement. “We are truly blessed to have a collection of world-class research institutions with the resources and talented medical experts on campus that allowed us to quickly assemble this task force to address a global pandemic. We are thankful to have the Task Force in place moving forward to allow the Big Ten Conference to position itself at the forefront of this issue and to share best practices for the management of and response to emerging infectious diseases now and in the future.”

The task force is led by Nebraska’s Dr. Chris Kratochvil, who is the executive director of the Global Center for Health Security at University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine. According to the Big Ten’s release, UNMC played a key role in the treatment of the Ebola virus in 2014 and is home to the National Quarantine Center, the nation’s only federal quarantine unit.

This past season was Rink’s 40th as IU men’s basketball’s team physician. He has a long and storied career as a cardiologist in Bloomington, serving patients in the area since 1974.

Rink received his medical degree from IU in 1966, later becoming a lieutenant commander and flight surgeon in the United States Navy. After returning to Indianapolis to complete a residency, he became a founding member and cardiologist at Internal Medicine Associates. He would become IMA’s president in 1995.

Along with his work with the Hoosiers, Rink has worked on both the national and international levels of sports medicine. He was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the International University Sports Federation General Assembly in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2015.

“The Task Force leverages extraordinary expertise from across the Big Ten, tackling COVID-19 related issues important to student-athletes and athletic programs,” Kratochvil said in the release. “Strong participation by all of the Big Ten universities has provided for a robust and synergistic team. The group serves as a resource to the entire Conference, addressing current infectious disease concerns, while preparing the Big Ten for the safe resumption of athletic activities in the future.”

This group, initially formed on March 7, has already provided input during conference discussions surrounding the cancelation of winter and spring sports, according to the release, “and will provide critical guidance around return-to-campus decisions at the appropriate time.”

The conference’s last decision regarding the suspension of team activities came in late March, as its ban on team activities was extended through May 4. The situation surrounding COVID-19 was to be reevaluated by the Big Ten on that date.

Other conferences have already shuttered sports for longer. The Southeastern and Pac-12 conferences previously shut down all athletic activities until May 31.