AMHERST - It sounds like a job for the school nurse more than a Division I men's basketball coach, but things are a little odd in this most concerning of flu seasons.

If one of his players coughs or sneezes at practice, University of Massachusetts coach Derek Kellogg is there.

"If they sneeze or cough, I come running over with the hand sanitizer," Kellogg said. "We have the hand sanitizer everywhere we go - from the training room to the weight room to the gym.

"We're taking as many precautionary measures as you can take," he added. "It's really being sanitary as much as anything."

UMass fans do not need a reminder of what flu can do to a basketball team. Influenza ripped through the Minutemen in the days before the 2007 Atlantic 10 Tournament, and the weakened squad fell to Saint Louis in the first game which ended its hope of advancing to the NCAA Tournament.

Earlier this month, the University of Washington's men's basketball team had to limit practices because seven of its players had flu symptoms.

Athletes are particularly susceptible to germs because of the contact in most sports.

Some college hockey teams have recommended keeping gloves on for the postgame handshakes.

UMass hockey coach Don "Toot" Cahoon is concerned about protecting his players.

"It worries the heck out of me," he said. "I have three kids that aren't feeling well right now and I don't want that to grow to six,

"We're following every prescribed method of dealing with this issue," Cahoon added. "We're working on keeping the locker room clean and getting guys to follow good habits in their dormitories. We've had meetings with out trainer to encourage them to have healthy habits so we can avoid this at every turn."

Jeff Smith, the head athletic trainer at UMass, said he's trying to keep the athletes informed avoiding behavior that could lead to problems with illness. He said there is no widespread flu among UMass athletes so far.

"We've had a couple kids, but nothing across the board," Smith said. "We haven't had that kind of flu hit us. It's obviously a concern. We've seen around the country teams get decimated by it."

Smith said developing smart habits can go a long way.

"We're educating the kids and trying to stay on top of it and have the resources available to them in terms of hand sanitizer and educate them about keeping their stuff clean and not sharing certain things like towels and water bottles," he said.

"We have a clinic on campus and we've made flu shots available to everyone," he added. "Many of the kids have gotten the seasonal flu shot ... If you have the symptoms you have to make sure you're getting the proper medication, the proper time off. It's not only going to affect yourself, but you might affect a teammate and then another team."

Amherst College head athletic trainer Stan Zieja said that school also has avoided an outbreak so far.

Zieja said while athletes often are lauded for their toughness in playing through injury or illness, players cannot try to be heroic if they're suffering from symptoms of the flu.

"If they have the symptoms, a fever over 100, we want them to get away from the team. We've stressed that this can spread through a team very quickly - so much so that in some cases you wouldn't be able to field a team," Zieja said.

"We have stressed that you're not only hurting yourself, but the rest of the team," he added. "This is highly contagious. You can't tough this out."

Amherst and other schools in the New England Small College Athletic Conference have been communicating during the week about the conditions on their campuses in case a precautionary postponement is warranted. None have occurred yet.

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Follow UMass coverage on Twitter at twitter.com/GazetteUMass. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at http://www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage.