The MAC dropping football and fall sports is a big deal. First FBS conference to make that decision. That's a major domino. Here are the following conferences that don't have football yet still plan as of now on having their other fall sports play: Atlantic Sun, Big East, Horizon, Summit, WAC, and WCC. No idea why these conferences haven't pulled the plug yet. No financial incentive to do so, as none of them have football. Here are the following FCS conferences that have lower level football that still plan as of now on having their fall sports play: Big Sky, Big South, MVC, OVC, Southern, and Southland. So even though these programs do have football, they are money losing football programs at that level. A couple football-specific programs in the FCS very recently dropped their plans to play so that may get these other programs to drop fall plans soon too. Eddie K listed no FCS playoffs, so if no football I would guess that would mean no fall sports for these conferences. Having seen the MAC just announce their decision will make the other peer FCS conferences likely to make a similar announcement soon. And then that leaves the FBS schools in the Power 5 (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, and PAC 12) and remaining four conferences out of the Group of 5 (AAC, C-USA, Mountain West, and Sun Belt; no MAC now) to try to go at this alone. I doubt Group of 5 gives it a go and follows along with the MAC. And then it just leaves the 65 teams (64 in women's soccer with no Georgia Tech) in the Power 5 to determine what they want to do. And for those P5s we will see more scenarios like Louisville and also many student-athletes opting out of the season for their own concern. Given where this is going, I have no idea why there are teams that were brought back well in advance of the start of classes to train for a competitive season that won't happen. NCAA could have made this call in the last 1-2 weeks. Just waiting for the inevitable on August 21. What sucks is for kids that get injured in preseason before 8/21 all for a season that won't be played, or worse those kids that got kicked out of Louisville as they should have never been there in the first place (yes, it's their fault for holding a party, but Louisville and other schools shouldn't have allowed for this potential scenario to happen to begin with).
Reason #487 why we shouldn't be playing sports this fall. Full stop and period. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/08/athletes-coronavirus-heart-complications/ TL ; DR Coronavirus is being linked to myocarditis in the young -- age 20 - 40 -- who did not die and seemingly have had little symptoms after the virus passed. Myocarditis is of course what Reggie Lewis and Hank Gathers died from. Two supremely conditioned young men (Gathers especially) who died on the court from a condition that they did not know they had. Players who have coronavirus should have cardiovascular screening, an EKG, an echocardiogram (a heart ultrasound) and a blood test for the protein troponin (a marker for cardiac injury.) In other words, quarantining our students for 14 days may just not be enough. The heart conditions noted in this article require months of non-physical activity. This article posits that athletes may be at greater risk for post covid19 trauma than non-athletes, primarily because they are athletes. We need to pull the plug now.
We are handling this so poorly! We can rip the bandaid off and let the kids go back to school or push things back and wait for a vaccination which probably isn't going to be effective. (and for those not clicking on the link below it is Fauci who says this). We have never had an effective Corona Virus vaccine. It's not from lack of trying! https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/cor...f-it-being-highly-effective-is-not-great.html So what do we do? Hide inside, isolate HEALTHY kids who generally don't have any huge issues with the virus? The virus exists, it is not going away, social distancing only serves to curtail some of its spread, as soon as you open things back up the virus resurfaces...until we reach some sort of community immunity or the virus mutates so that it isn't as contagious or its effects aren't as serious. In the meantime, we are creating so many issues. We are bankrupting huge sectors of our economy which will lead to suicides, lack of food and housing for the low income individuals not to mention the health crisis that we haven't seen the effects of yet with 1. Cancer screenings , treatments and "elective" surgeries postponed. How many new cancers that were treatable if caught early (and now are not) do you think we will see as a result of these health care shutdowns? 2. The incidence of mental health issues are going to be unprecedented. We have already seen overdoses, suicides etc rise. What about these kids who have been isolated etc and put in front of screens 8 hours a day in remote learning,. What about the kids who fell behind because their schools were not prepared to teach online or they didn't have home internet etc. 3. Kids who live in abusive homes, kids who need the free and reduced lunches etc that schools provide. We are going to see the fall out of this for a decade.
So you want to send the kids home and have them continue to train unmonitered? The chances that they will live at home as a cloistered nun with no exposure to COVID is not based on reality. I would prefer my kid to be in a program which is at least keeping track of them. And all of the above testing would need to be done at OUR expense if they are not at school. How many parents especially given that the economy is suffering have $2000 to be spent on medical tests for the .00001 % of kids we are seeing with this side effect. The virus is in existence. We are all getting it unless you completely cut off human interaction forever. It sucks. It sucks for everyone but that unfortunately is our reality. If your child is really scared or you are, bring them home. Opt out You have that option. But if you know your child won't agree to be locked up until we have an effective vaccine etc then really probably are getting better care on a college campus as an athlete. Why are we having this discussion about safety? Since when was life 100% safe? Everyone everyday decides the level of risk they'd like to assume. Some kids do drugs, some drive under the influence. They do that more in college than in HS but yet we send them there. We assume some risk they may make bad decisions, We take a risk when we drive a car. I would say right now the risks for most of our students are higher driving a car than COVID. Really and truly look at the numbers of kids under 25 with issues. Again, if you're that upset or scared keep your kid home. The NCAA guaranteed you won't lose your scholarship.
What if 55 year old coach gets it and dies because players are positive and around him or her everyday. It’s not just about the kid getting it or not. It’s about others in the spread. One party at Louisville over 20 positives. So it’s not just one person and whether they are ok. What about the others.
NOONE IS SAFE!! Unless they completely self isolate, And that means from family, friends etc who is NOT ALSO SELF ISOLATING! If said 55 year old coach has a wife who works outside of the home who is to say she won't be the one infecting him. If he goes anywhere and is in contact with any people he's at risk. If his son/daughter has a signifcant other and they are in contact now he's been exposed via the significant' other's behaviors? Do you see how this goes. NO ONE IS SAFE!!! Yes we can minimize our exposure with masks, handwashing etc but NO ONE IS 100% SAFE UNLESS THEY ARE COMPLETELY ISOLATED. This virus is everywhere! Coaches can opt out too. We are being delusional if we think cancelling sports is keeping anyone safer. We parents are at more risk (and I'd say many of us are in the 55 age range) if they come and live in our homes than a coach who is maked when he/she is around the athletes. Grocery store clerks, nurses, doctors, delivery people, Amazon workers don't have the option of "opting out". EVERYTHING IN LIFE CARRIES RISK. Oh and to throw a grenade into the room and shut the door... Our kids are more at risk from concussions (womens' soccer) than they are with COVID. Issue is we won't know anything about their side effects for decades. Plus the injuries etc and wear and tear they suffered playing the sport. We have accepted those risks.
Good recent discussion on this thread. Different points of view but pretty civil and not much in the way of plain dumb statements. My addition, at this point, is that we all need to have some humiity -- we to a good extent are in the dark trying to describe something we can feel part of but not see the whole of and we are experiencing something that is threatening to a not fully known degree and that we may never be able to fully control. In a sense, we are part of a grand experiment that is being undertaken by our world and will have to wait to see what the result will be, to some unknown extent to be determined by our response. More directly on Division I women’s soccer: Total Division I Teams 341 Not Eligible for NCAA Tournament 3 Total Teams Eligible for Tournament 338 50% of Eligible Teams 169 Teams Not Playing in Fall 103 Additional Not Playing to Equal 50% 66 The 103 teams so far not playing in the Fall do not include Howard, which is playing as an independent and I believe is not playing any Fall sports, although I have not been able to verify that. If Howard indeed is not playing, then it is 104 not playing so far and 65 more would bring the number to the 50% threshold. The Big Sky, yesterday, decided not to play football in the Fall, but explicitly did not make decisions on its other Fall sports. The Summit League decisions were connected to the Missouri Valley Football Conference decisions, and with FCS schools now knowing the FCS championship will not be in the Fall, they will have to make a decision about their other Fall sports. Although the Colonial has not decided on no Fall sports as a conference, its northern teams and William & Mary have decided individually on no Fall sports, and those teams are included in the above Teams Not Playing in Fall number. The Big East is an interesting case to me. They have a mostly northeast group of teams (Connecticut, Georgetown, Providence, St Johns, Seton Hall, Villanova) and a mostly mid-west group of teams (Butler, Creighton, DePaul, Marquette, Xavier) and have the possibility of playing in those two divisions with a double round robin in each one. It is conceivable to me that if the NCAA championship is to stay in the Fall, the northeast group nevertheless could defer play to the Spring (since the rest of the northeast has shut down) but the mid-west group could play in the Fall. Perhaps the conference will wait and keep an eye on how the numbers develop and, if it could be the conference to push the number not playing to 50%, then decide to go to Spring as an entire conference. In any event, I can imagine lots of discussion going on there. It all is pretty murky to me. I also remain fairly doubtful about whether there in fact will be Spring soccer, under any circumstance, except to the extent necessary to create a Title IX equivalency with football.
I agree there is risk both ways. As someone who is a little older so at a slightly higher risk, selfishly I would rather still play at this point. Outside of coaching for a couple decades, a main reason is because if we don’t have fall sports I may not have a job. If I don’t have a job I don’t know how to pay my mortgage, make my car payment, but food for my kid in high school, and pay college tuition for my older kid. COVID is a real issue, but the bigger issue is the reality of not being able to put a roof over your child’s head, and that to me is terrifying.
Herein lies the million dollar question. We have fall out on both sides of the equation and we will never be able to say (even in hindsight) which was the better way to go. Don't shoot the messenger here for laying things out bluntly. The virus exists, we can't put It back into the lab or wherever it came from. Lives are going to be lost simply because it exists. That is a fact of life as we know it. Our question going forward is to maximize quality of life and minimize the risk/losses because the virus exists and will forever. Do we open things up, knowing that we will lose a certain number of lives? Do we keep everything shut down and keep businesses closed, shut down schools, colleges, sports etc indefinitely? If a vaccine isn't effective, this could take 5 years to gain herd immunity and countless numbers of lives. Is there a middle ground where we can meet somewhere in between? Knowing that we will have some risk but by masking, distancing, washing our hands and being diligent about contract tracing and testing to minimize our community risk but still allowing life to go on somewhat? Many states stopped all non-emergency medical treatment. What is the fallout of the women who missed their annual mammogram, couldn't get into see their dermatologist to check out a weird spot and now it's a stage 2 melonoma? I know people personally who this has happened to. Mammogram missed (it was actually a followup from a questionable one a year ago-took five months to get it scheduled after initial one was cancelled. Biopsy is scheduled Monday!) What about the women/children who were trapped with a serial abuser for months on end? The anxiety and depression we are seeing in all of our communities are frightening. I could go on and on. It's not simply protecting everyone from a virus that truthfully 98% of the population handle fairly well. These are bigger issues than sports and playing or not playing but you don't realize how much of our economy is built upon sports. It's coaches who can't make their mortgages, it's families who can't feed their kids, it's the non athlete students who were counting on offsetting some of their tuition by working for the university on game days. Vendors, food service providers, hotels, airlines, community businesses who depend on students and alumni and on and on who depend upon this section of the economy to provide for the basics of life, food and shelter. Life is full of risks. On a personal level we are able to decide what to do or not to do as an individual. And if we decide not to play sports this fall, there will be a drastic change in the world of college athletics. We probably just saw the height of college athletics in the fall of 2019. It won't look like that in a very long time. We will see sports being cut. We will see programs folding. Opportunities will be cut. So not playing football (and other sports) while trying to protect a population that arguably (by many of the behaviors they've exhibited across the board throughout various sports and across the country) that isn't all that concerned about protecting themselves seems to be a weak argument at best. And as an aside, if they were all that concerned about protecting themselves we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.
Florida's revised schedule shows the SEC team playing 14 matches--four non-conference and 10 conferences games--with the first game schedule for Sept. 4.
Sure, I agree. But not a single person on the planet is going to be able to assess the risk level accurately because we simply do not know the risk. The article I posted listed one mitigating factor in assessing coronavirus in something other than a lived/didn't live dichotomy. From what I read, we're all at risk of increased heart issues if we had covid19, except that in the case of myocarditis, it could be far more dangerous to our athletes than to be precisely because they are athletes. I'm 56 and relatively sedate. I'm not pushing my heart much anymore. College sports is a completely discretionary and voluntary activity. No kid HAS to play, unless, I guess, you're a football player at Colorado State. I only spent five minutes googling this, but it seems that there are about 4.5 deaths a year to college athletes directly attributable to athletics. I am fully aware that there are LOTS of other stressors out there, as listed in many of the posts above, but for those who want us to play sports, what would be the acceptable number of deaths attributable to coronavirus for the fall season? Six kids? 10 kids? I'm a Virginia alum. We've got peak-great soccer and men's basketball programs. There are titles to be won that are within Swanson and Bennett's grasp. I wanna see sports. I wanna watch the games. Sport this year just seems really reckless.
One thing that you are not taking into account is that we more than likely will lose college athletes to COVID regardless of the decision to play or not play. Maybe you will have a rare exception of a kid who would have totally isolated outside of his/her sport and not been exposed but i believe that most college kids will falL into the following categories 1. Have had it. 2. Will get it. 3 was exposed and didn’t get it. And by most I mean 90% of the tide to population. How many of your kids worked out alone in isolation all spring/summer? NCAA has reiterated many time. Any athlete can opt out and still remain on scholarship.they have a.Choice. Every single thing in life has risks. Personally if my child got covid i would want her at school with medical personnel overseeing and hopefully minimizing her risks during treatment And return to play. They are going to be for the most part well read on the specific risks to athletes. Many of the doctors overseeing college athletes are at major research medical centers and if they aren’t they are all sharing data etc that’s applicable to their specific target audience. Can you say that with all general practitioners in small town USA? And if my kid stays at school she will be tested regularly. Symptomatic or asymptomatic. That is not going to happen outside college athletics anywhere. I think soccer will he tested twice a week maybe? I can’t remember the ncaa guidelines. No way that’s happening at home. From my viewpoint she is safer at school with guidelines in place. And I have one that won’t be out partying if soccer is cancelled. So her risk levels if soccer is cancelled are probably lower than if she plays. (And i think she’s an exception. Most every other college kid is going out dating etc ). Even with that factored in she’s safer at school because she has more medical eyes on her and she will get better treatment for her specifically as an athlete knowing her specific risks. Again it’s rough. Lives are going to be lost on both sides. A suicide due to isolation or mental health right now won’t be put in the COVID category but it absolutely could be the cause of death. I’m above all sad. Sad for everyone who is losing out on college experiences. Sad for those who are worried about job security. Sad for those who have lost businesses. The reach of the sporting community is arguably one of the greatest factors in the US right now. NWSL had a brilliant season. We are desperate for normalcy and sports for many defines that.
I don’t know what the ‘acceptable’ amount of deaths should be, but with this age group being athletic and mostly healthy there is a very, very strong chance there won’t be any deaths. A lot of coaches I know feel athletes are more likely to contract COVID by engaging in ‘riskier’ behaviors when they don’t have a season than being on a field of play- the recent Louisville party saga is a solid example of this.
The first and third of these quotes point to a fundamental issue we should be communicating about. The first raises the question whether enough Americans have the will to mask, distance, wash hands, be diligent about contract tracing, and be dligent about testing. The third appears to answer the question, No. With freedom comes responsibility, and the current situation appears to show Americans are not willing to be responsible enough to merit the freedom they want. I hate to say this, and it is depressing to say it, but what has happened so far in the USA in response to the virus suggests that there are a whole lot of self-centered narcicists in this country -- a great number of Americans lack the fundamental moral centers that must be paired with freedom in order for freedom to have a positive outcome. If this is the case with enough Americans, then the answer to your first question is, No, there is not a middle ground where we can meet somewhere in between because not enough Americans are willing to go stand in that middle ground (which with this virus apparently would be about two-thirds of us). Regarding the second quote, we have to ask if it would be a bad thing for there to be a drastic change in the world of college athletics. If we look at 2019, in terms of big school football and basketball at least, we have to ask if that was a height or a depth. It seems to me that with big school football and basketball, schools have gotten vast distances from their educational missions. Many of the best, most recognized, most honored college athletes are not in school for an education. They are there to be on farm teams for professional football and basketball. We are being told we need to evolve. It is the nature of our world to tell us that. Whether we will or not, in the USA, remains to be seen. What I am seeing in the USA so far is not encouraging.
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/signs_symptoms/lymecarditis.html I know of a 30 yr old (family member) who was bitten by a tick while playing sports yrs ago (football) and suffers from heart issues as a result. He does not regret playing sports at all. Risks in everything, including the unknown future.
If Corona isn't harmful to our athletes, riddle me this: Why was my DD's team just told that the players who test positive for Covid antibodies has to have a follow up EKG and a heart workup? Sorry guys, soccer right now isn't that important.
They are beginning to do this at a lot of schools as a precaution as there is some evidence that Covid could cause a heart issue in a small amount of people. Several schools are implementing this just to make sure they catch an arrhythmia. If we don’t have college athletics this year we will all have to face the consequences; athletes without scholarships or a program to play for at not an insignificant amount of institutions, athletics staff with families out of a job and not able to support their lives ones. Based on feedback from student athletes at our institution amongst all fall sports there wasn’t a single athlete who said they wanted season to be cancelled (Our administration asked as part of the conference trying to gather information a few weeks back) and we’ve had a fair amount of cases. This virus isn’t real affecting them.
We are mitigating risk! Thank you to the schools for doing this. You know this now but did you know it before your daughter mentioned it? If not, would you have made her have an EKG prior to resuming training if she was sick? Would you have even known she was sick? Are you testing your child twice a week symptomatic or not? Personally I would rather have my kid at a school where these risks are known and a person who is specializing on athletes. Put these kids at home, they get sick, our local doctor doesn't know this is an issue and they resume training. Seriously, they are safer in a controlled environment! And BTW this is not common for this to happen to otherwise healthy people. And anytime you have a virus there is risk of it going into your heart. I know lots of people who this has happened to.
You keep mentioning this mythical "controlled environment" that the athletes are supposedly in right now. I have a daughter in the Pac12 and nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, they all had their initial Covid tests. What next? Not a damn thing until Aug 15th when preseason official starts. Right now they are working out on their own with various friends, playing small pickup games with various other friends, and attending BBQ's at each other's apartments (ala Louisville). Zero coach or trainer interaction with the exception of a zoom meeting once a week. If you think these girls are in a controlled environment in college right now you are kidding yourself. It's a free for all, with the players and coaches both in the dark as to what the hell is going on. I hear it first hand daily. It is what it is.
Some of you would kill off Anson to play college sports. Keyboard medical experts are the best.. We failed as a country and now we will pay the price.
These athletes aren’t being affected by this virus. If they want to play then allow them to play. If they don’t want to play then don’t. None of us on here are medical experts, but the data that is simple for anyone to understand shows that this age group handles the virus well. Coaches and officials should also be able to decide if they want to be involved or not.
In all likeliness Anson would be just fine. Saying it’s “just to play college sports” is not exactly what the bigger picture is. The big picture is athletes with no scholarships or program to play for, coaches and administrators who cannot afford their mortgages or health benefits because they don’t have a job.
Maybe we failed as a country and maybe we didn't. Mother Nature has a way of being fairly uncontrollable. Once that cat got out of the bag in China and crossed the ocean it was going to go through most of the world one way or another. We are fooling ourselves to think if we mask indefinitely and social distance that it will go away. The whole world isn't on the same page, it's not disappearing. If it is in the far corner of Africa, it can come right back to the US one one plane flight.... We have so many parts of the world that can't social distance, can't mask due to socio-economic conditions.
You are right, as always, sir. We live in a different and maybe the new world, of college athletics at least, won't be so bad. It ain't like scholarship money will go away if athletic departments are wrecked. Many schools have a lot of money to give away. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how much money Virginia awards in scholarships and at a minimum it seems to be in the $50 to $75 million range. Schools pick students they think will enrich the community, and even if athletic scholarships were to go away completely (and that's a worse case scenario), I bet a lot kids who bring fame to the university through sports will get a fair crack at that pot of money. My daughter, who was a good, conscientious student, but nothing special, got over $160,000 in aid from University of Rochester. (I'm still not really sure what the difference between scholarship and grant was; all i know is that we didn't have to repay it.) I'm not sure the college experience for the player, most certainly for the non-revenue sports, will be worse if athletic departments are pared way back, there are only two coaches, and schools aren't paying $5 million salaries and funding $50 million man-caves. Players will still go to college and play the games they love, and we the fans, will still love our players and watch the games. While I am certainly (obviously) pessimistic about the 100,000 more Americans who are going to lose their lives to coronavirus, I'm not pessimistic about the future landscape of collegiate sports.