Concern over the Zika virus will cut short Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh's satellite-camp tour.
The tour was to have concluded Thursday in American Samoa with a contingent of Michigan staff that was expected to include Harbaugh. ESPN reported a Michigan athletics official confirmed that the camp was canceled due to fears about the Zika virus.
John Raynar, the communications director for the Republican Party of American Samoa, wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday that a doctor had advised the Harbaughs against attending the camp because of the risk the virus poses to pregnant women. Harbaugh's wife, Sarah, is pregnant.
With the cancellation, controversy over Harbaugh's camp circuit figures to settle some. Satellite camps are off-campus camps, mostly operated by high schools, that college coaches are permitted to attend in an official capacity. Harbaugh took full advantage, at a cost of roughly $350,000, in arranging Michigan's presence at camps in 21 states. It was an offseason hot topic in college football as some coaches opposed them. Among them was Alabama's Nick Saban, who expressed regulatory concerns about the camps earlier this month.
The NCAA first issued a ban on satellite camps, then reversed the decision, to the chagrin of the SEC, which had formally opposed the camps.
The camp would have been Michigan's second camp stop in American Samoa this month.
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