On the other hand, maybe I am wrong. Maybe the NCAA announcement, especially with its indications of the protocols schools will have to meet, is encouraging them to make a decision now about whether they will or will not play this Fall. Maybe it will force some conferences out now, rather than having them wait only to drop out later. I post this having just heard on the news that there may be another conference that will announce tomorrow that it will not have football until the Spring, which I assume will carry other sports with it.
This week was a big blow to many schools. Championships were always doubtful but those NCAA 'guidelines' becoming mandatory was a kick in the gut. No liability waivers and financial responsibility for anything covid related will shut down everyone but the P5s that have some campus or conference reserves or endowments. One coach told me he was instructed not to even have an in-person team meeting until the legal and insurance issues become clearer- if they do. At some point very soon, campus health insurers may just put a big % or all of testing and other covid costs back onto the schools (or players policy) and liability coverage may become unaffordable without any covid related waivers. The NCAA had to know this and so it seems like they are playing hardball. The NCAA COULD have provided for a national covid testing program and some additional insurance coverage - but they did the opposite - they decided to keep all the risk with the conferences and schools to save their own arse. In the P5, we are seeing athletes demand testing and some other standards beyond the NCAA requirements. For example, the Big10 decided on 2 covid tests per week but the players want 3 tests per week. Women's soccer kids will be doing whatever football players are doing I'm sure. But as soon as all the kids come back to town, I'm afraid there will be more campus outbreaks and schools will be sending everyone home in a few weeks. (See Rutgers,Louisvlle,Co St, etc for examples.) Will the remaining D1s keep their athletes in a bubble just to play games when schools send kids home and 'close' their campuses? The NCAA started this summer saying no classes-no sports. What happened to that I wonder. If a school or college town is not safe enough for classes, is it safe enough for sports teams? Will the athletes move back in to hotel rooms when their campus closes? Maybe they should just stay in hotels frankly and P5 sports become like a minor league this year with a couple hours of classes on your laptop between workouts. Everyone else will now be waiting for a vaccine. It's the only way back now really. PS- thought I would add this since this is how most college kids get their 'news'. Looks likely the 50% standard may be adopted - play less than 50% of games OR Opt Out, and keep your eligibility. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDg9BfFp7LS/
There are some other solutions being put forward. Here is one by Havard MD, PHD Michael Mina in which he proposes cheap($1), less accurate, tests done repeatedly from home or school with quick results each day. This article talks about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/health/rapid-Covid-tests.html There are many videos where he explains the logic behind it. Here is one: The NYT article does a decent job giving an overview of the pros and cons to his approach. I believe his approach is better than sending college people to school with no testing. It is starting to get some traction with the NYT article and on twitter. Edit: They have a website now pushing the concept https://www.rapidtests.org/
D2 and D3 shutdown in the interest of student athletes safety. D1 keeps its hopes alive, because if a student athlete goes to a D1 program I guess that gives them some kind of immunity from this virus. Unbelievable. Well at least P5s are being open in making this much more about protecting $ than health. The thing that I have a question about is let's say 50% of programs don't back out by August 21. But after August 21, because different programs have to shut down later in the fall due to outbreaks we then get over that 50% cancellation mark. What then, do we cancel fall championships then? Because those shutdowns are going to happen. We will see programs having to temporarily shutdown and I also can easily see scenarios where entire campuses have to shutdown and send all kids home from campus in October. Also, for any programs that have to shutdown for 14 days, what happens to those games? Are they forfeits or just no plays? All kinds of competitive imbalances in that. One things cpthomas, I am a little more confident than you are about reaching the 50% cancellation mark by August 21. As part of the NCAA announcement it includes protocol for weekly or bi-weekly testing. That is a significant expense that many Division I programs cannot afford. I think you'll see more mid-majors make cancellation decisions for that reason alone. No clue at all why the Southern, Atlantic Sun, Horizon, rest of CAA, Summit, Big Sky, MVC, OVC, Big South, Southland, and Sun Belt are even making an attempt at this. Power 5 and Group of 5 at least there is an economic incentive to put your student athletes in harm's way (as disgusting as that sounds). If the cancellation of fall championships doesn't occur by August 21 I'll be appalled. But nothing will surprise me. An even more worse case scenario than a fall cancellation would be trying to hold a fall season and then cancel it midway through. Those schools that tried a fall attempt won't get a "redo" in the spring. If that happens there's not much soccer for those kids in 2020-21, just whatever games they got in before a shutdown. Makes way more sense to just bag fall and give it a shot in the spring and just hope we're in better shape then.
These athletes will not be more safe without athletics. Look what happened at Louisville with the parties. If there is no season these athletes will be out at bars, parties, all sorts of gatherings. This virus isn’t affecting the college age group significantly so they’re not going to be at less risk by not playing.
UCLA coach Chip Kelly And his wife contracted the Corona virus in March, recovered, and Kelly returned to coaching. At least 8 football players have contracted the virus since returning to campus. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/08/07/report-ucla-coach-chip-kelly-contracted-coronavirus/
@Collegewhispers What? All these kids will be safer at home. I think we all understand college SAs are more disciplined 'in season' and when coaches and teammates are on high alert and so watching closely and making better than average decisions. But what Louisville just proved is that student-athletes can easily become a net negative influence and be a source of virus spread in these college towns. I'm sure the health care folks in Louisville are asking "what happens when the other 10,000 kids show up" just like they are in Chapel Hill and many other college towns. Simple point - even if 100% of the SA's behave great and there's no virus, the general college population will be very dangerous to the town and staff and will cause the campus shutdown. So, P5s will be faced with the scenario I described earlier - staying in hotels basically under quarantine taking online classes so they can train and play or just letting the kids go home and try again at some point in the future. Frankly, if I had a vote - send everyone home but football and basketball. Try to keep them in a bubble to have the games and bowls and March Madness, make the money, so we have some budget to work with next year or whenever a vaccine arrives. I bet you LOTS of college AD's are thinking this way. The P5 may actually still try it. But players don't want to be in a strict quarantine all year near their empty campus just to make the school money. Why those football players are speaking out and opting out and we haven't even heard from basketball folks yet. We had our chance to get this virus under control this summer. We didn't. The NCAA had their chance to really help schools (with testing and liability protections), they didn't. So, college sports get screwed. Unfortunately, just like very many in our country right now.
Latest I heard is power 5 is cooling on idea of running own championship If ncaa doesn’t do it. Cost, oversight and mechanics of running it is a burden no one wants to take on. I agree with Eddie. Push to spring (or even next fall). Let football and b-ball go Due to money and get other teams off campus (or even on campus in chunks: 6-8 weeks for training). I’m hearing more and more SA speak up and say we don’t want to play either to burn a year on an abbreviated season OR due to managing risks of covid. Not that schools are malicious, but the infrastructure just isn’t there. And I do think athletic departments have done admirable jobs trying to make this go. unfortunately our national leadership is horrid and there’s still limited tracing and testing happening. To then expect colleges to implement what the feds couldn’t is unrealistic. just imagine if in march, April or May the federal government said we need a rapid testing system done and available by July 1? as I’ve said on here....I went from pessimistic that the season would happen, to hopeful, to thinking hey this could work and now I’m surprisingly hoping it doesn’t happen. 12 games that may or may not happen based on a teams testing doesn’t sound good. Nor does a big game between the two conference leaders marred by each missing 4 starters sound appealing. Or we get to October 15 and it’s all called off? Or at the worst case, some athlete, coach or SID or team bus driver dies? I fully believe in covid and also fully think most people have mild to moderate symptoms but the liability, guilt and anguish hanging over the season makes it not worth it. and this may sound Pollyanna but can the fed govt give some bailout money to athletic departments? Or ESPN or big media help offset the lost tv revenue?
Giving it a shot in the Spring is an option a coach and his or her athletes would look at only if they assess that a shot in the Spring has a chance of being successful. For at least some conferences, the ADs may be making it pretty clear they think this is not a viable option. Thus the real choice may be between trying in the Fall or bypassing the school year altogether. I think that is a more realistic way for decision-makers to look at what the choice is and this may be a factor in delaying school and conference decisions. The conference I mentioned in my previous post is the Big Sky, which announced this morning that they will not be playing football this Fall and will try for the Spring. Interestingly, they have not pushed other sports to the Spring, at this point, although that is a possibility. Perhaps they know they will not be able to have fans at football games in the Fall and do not want to forego ticket revenue. For the other sports, however, ticket revenue is not enough of a factor to want to push them to the Spring, with all the other problems that would cause, so they are leaving them for now in the Fall. The Big Sky thinks, also, that with their moving Football to the Spring, the no-football school numbers are likely to be enough to meet the 50% threshold so that the Football Championship Subdivision championship will not occur in the Fall. As an FYI, if a school has a scheduled game it cannot play because of not enough players, the game is treated as a non-game and not as a forfeit. In relation to the question about what if the August 21 date passes with more than half the teams still saying they are planning to play and later enough teams pull out so that at least half are not playing, the way the NCAA decision is written up it looks like the championship still will occur in the Fall. I am not sure I believe that actually is what will happen.
No one has to play. It is optional. The NCAA is not forcing anyone to do this. Risk/reward is always a personal choice in everything we do.
There seems to be far more risk than any reward at this point. Even if there is a championship, it will be forever listed with an asterisk as *"The Covid championship that really wasn't because no one was in it." Just spoke with some women soccer players today at a Pac-12 school. And a couple football players. The overall consensus was to just call this dumpster fire and move on. Or as one football player put it, "D2 and D3 isn't safe playing, but we are because we have D1 immunity? The hell is that?" I bet anyone a case of the best beer there will be no Fall sports. I just feel it.
Claims that "it will be with us forever" are what the vast majority of Scientists, Epidemiologists, and Experts believe. Some of the SOURCES you requested are below. This first article describes the issue in detail. It is not from a fringe source. This is the Atlantic (most consider it left leaning but it generally gets respect from all sides). It is a great resource for a better understanding of what we all face. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/coronavirus-will-never-go-away/614860/ The Coronavirus Is Never Going Away No matter what happens now, the virus will continue to circulate around the world. The coronavirus is simply too widespread and too transmissible. The most likely scenario, experts say, is that the pandemic ends at some point—because enough people have been either infected or vaccinated—but the virus continues to circulate in lower levels around the globe. Cases will wax and wane over time. Outbreaks will pop up here and there. Even when a much-anticipated vaccine arrives, it is likely to only suppress but never completely eradicate the virus. (For context, consider that vaccines exist for more than a dozen human viruses but only one, smallpox, has ever been eradicated from the planet, and that took 15 years of immense global coordination.) We will probably be living with this virus for the rest of our lives. This is just a small part of an excellent article with a lot more valuable information. The Washington Post consulted experts and reported the same thing. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/27/coronavirus-endemic/ Coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine Embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response, experts say There’s a good chance the coronavirus will never go away. Even after a vaccine is discovered and deployed, the coronavirus will likely remain for decades to come, circulating among the world’s population. Experts call such diseases endemic — stubbornly resisting efforts to stamp them out. Think measles, HIV, chickenpox. It is a daunting proposition — a coronavirus-tinged world without a foreseeable end. But experts in epidemiology, disaster planning and vaccine development say embracing that reality is crucial to the next phase of America’s pandemic response. Is there a chance that we eradicate SARS-Cov-2 like we did Smallpox? Definitely. Is it likely? Not according to the experts at this point. On what do you base your "careless sloppiness" statement? What are your sources that these EXPERTS from Harvard, UNC, Johns Hopkins, etc are wrong ? Please let everyone know.
Bottom line - their are consequences to every behavior. Dumb ass Americans refusing to be take this sh$t seriously had let to an untenable situation. I'm old enough to remember the 'problem' that Americans had with mandatory seat belt laws. 'Seat belts save lives' was the spin. They do. Buckle up dumb ass. Masks and social distancing will prevent the spread of the virus. Wear a flippin' mask - dumb ass. Reminds me of the Ted Turner quote “The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that we know that.” Shut it down and put the football and the hoops teams in a bubble if it's that important. All the rest of the non-revenue sport really don't matter. They only exist because of title 9 (which I support by the way). That's the reality.
After this thing being around since almost the beginning of the year there seems to be a decent amount of data regarding the way this affects the population. Whi The risk/reward is this: We play and most athletes don’t have symptoms, so really aside from a few people being sick sports are competitive and schools bring in revenue. Or This risk is too great so we don’t play. The money schools receive through athletics revenue to pay for scholarships, facilities etc is no longer there so colleges cannot give athletes financial aid and they have to pay for their degree like anyone else. Additionally schools have to eliminate sports programs because they can’t afford to fund them.
I'm not sure many current athletes are willing to sacrifice their health for the greater financial good of an institution. Especially to keep the NCAA afloat.
I think the statistics demonstrate they aren’t risking their health by playing, and they don’t understand that by not playing they may not have a team to play for next year. If athletes don’t want to risk their health for the financial good of an institution I think that is totally fair. But again you need to understand you won’t have a scholarship, and you also won’t have a program to play for as the schools won’t have the finances.
This. Perhaps we need bumper stickers or a multi media campaign with the simple message of "MASK UP DUMB-ASS!" It really is that simple. All these idiots deciding that their "freedom" and get-togethers with friends are more important than helping their country out of the biggest health and economic crisis in over a hundred years is the epitome of "it's all about me". Anyone miss.....Concerts? Fairs? Graduations? Live Sporting Events? Big backyard parties? Family Reunions? Vacations? Schools? Healthy Local Economies? Pull your head out of your arse and start listening to what needs to be done. Wear a mask whenever you go out of your home (unless you're not around anyone...such as a walk in the woods). Avoid close contact with anyone you don't live with. Wash your hands. Keep distance from people and WEAR A MASK. Educate your kids on what their role is in getting their country back on its feet and protecting the health of people in their communities. Pull together as Americans and stop politicizing a health crisis that has killed over 160,000 Americans in 5 months. MASK UP DUMB-ASS
If the remaining FCS schools throw in the football towel, could see women's soccer hit the below 50% rule.
With how much this virus has spread I would think it’s safe to say we have to live with it for just now. Our conference postponed until spring and based on information we hope this will help, but the financial implications are so extreme it has been difficult because we may not have a conference/ program/athletics department next fall. All that said, do you think we could play sports with masks based on the science? If wearing a mask can help society function, and in the case of this thread allow athletics take place, then maybe this is the way forwards.
I am not aware of a readily available mask that is safe to wear while participating in an aerobic sport activity. Sports will be able to come back when a vaccine is available to the masses. It's possible that most Americans will have access to a vaccine by late March or April. We can only hope and do what is needed now to mitigate deaths and economic impact. Yes, young people usually don't suffer symptoms from COVID. However even with NO symptoms showing they are infectious and will infect others - thus increasing the spread, increasing the number of people who get deathly ill, increasing the toll on health care workers, and increasing the people in their community who are killed as a result of the virus. If we all work to bring the infection rate down to "baseline" then there will be less people walking around who are infectious and it's more safe for the economy and sports to open up in a modified way until a vaccine is widely available. We must slow the spread of the virus. It is that simple. Masks and the other steps that every person should be doing to help reduce the spread of the virus, is the way we get our sports back.
So what do you think is the timeline on getting sports back? We all know the spread is lessened by masks. Social distancing works. College age athletes are not affected by this. The vulnerable still have a high survival rate. The reality is hitting college athletics financially more than from a risk standpoint. We have many athletes who tested positive and feel fine between the MAC, Horizon, Patriot league, Big Ten, ACC, and several others conferences.
This is occurring on every single campus! The kids aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing off the field. If the kids follow protocol off the field, they wouldn't need to be playing with masks etc.
@Collegewhispers Not sure why you don't get it. It's not necessarily the soccer causing the problem here. Soccer and other team sports are not themselves necessarily high risk with a good testing program and you don't play with a mask on. (Turn on CBS Sports at 3pm and you'll see!) It's the team meetings, locker rooms, dorms, dining hall, travel in buses and hotels, AND college social life and parties that create most of the risk. Frequent testing and all the mitigation measures we know about can even help with these things and could allow for a season in a good "bubble". As the NHL/NBA/MLS/NWSL seem to have accomplished. Even some of their teams could not get into the bubble though, and the MLB is not doing as well when they decided to travel BUT... These are college kids on college campuses! Not pros in 4-star hotels with security. It's the thousands of other students that will create outbreaks and close the campus. Louisville did show us athletes will also act like college students off-campus and can contribute to virus spread. Not shocking but just another risk for college players that don't behave. Some might say we're asking too much of these kids, who are not really 'paid'. I'm sure that press release showing the Louisville players getting fired was widely forwarded on P5 team text groups! So, when the outbreaks occur, you either create a regulated serious bubble for athletes or send them home and try again in the future. We are seeing that only the P5 seems willing to create a good bubble and play this Fall regardless of what happens on campus or in their town. Again, I say go for it football and basketball. Make the money so we don't go completely broke and lets try with everyone next year. IF your campus remains open, train and play a non-traditional season in the fall with 5-6 games, like in the Spring, if you can find other teams still playing. And then just let the kids go home and keep their eligibility when you have your campus outbreak and close. (and hope and pray no one gets hurt). College sports are not going anywhere! Sports are still and will be crucial for enrollment and PR and alumni relations, etc. (and revenue again at some point) Budget cuts will generally occur in this order - Operations (no games), Equipment (no reason to dress up), then Salary and then Scholarships (sorry but players are more important than coaches). So, some coaches will be in trouble for sure. I read a survey that said 45% of college assistant coaches were not renewed for 20-21 across all divisions and sports. So, there is someone out there that will do your job for a lot less money- be ready for that coaches. But the team will be back next year - especially women's team sports like soccer and especially if you do have football. This was confirmed yesterday for those keeping count. No FCS playoff- https://www.espn.com/college-footba...offs-shelved-fall-conferences-opt-wait-spring
Mid-American Conference cancelled all Fall sports about an hour ago. Dominoes are beginning to fall. Big East not too far behind. For the schools that don't make money from their Athletic Departments and rely on tuition and room and board to keep operations going, the decision is an easy o