He articulates the merits of the argument pretty well but the issue is somewhat overstated as there's no way to know how many of the spring-sports Seniors would want to stay another entire year, not just another semester. I agree that even if it approaches 30-40%, it's a financial and roster problem. Some will graduate and become graduate transfers for sure. Staying in school may make good sense with the job market perhaps not looking so good in the rest of 2020. However - the big issue not mentioned is the precedent set by the NCAA. How could they not give this same extension of eligibility to Fall athletes? It puts even more pressure on them to have a fall season. Sending hundreds more athletes into the transfer market with that extra year will be crazy (crazier than it already is). Some schools, or even conferences, may just agree with this Pitt player and say, "move on, we can't honor 5th year awards". But there will also be some who will and go after those kids. Budgets will be super tight and being cut anyway, especially if there's no fall football revenue. Hang on.
Why does another year of eligibility require another year of scholarship money? Couldn't programs make them a preferred walk on and call it good? If they come back and take advantage of another year, it's likely they already planned on coming back for academic reasons before all of this went down anyhow. I am probably over simplifying things, but if money is the biggest issue, then take the money out of the equation. You could also limit transfers for anyone taking advantage of the additional year of eligibility. Issue two solved. What am I missing?
Not many spring sports programs are fully funded or even well funded if they are at the NCAA max so it's not quite such a massive financial strain but... If a student has a decent athletic scholarship and School A says, you can come back but we aren't funding those 5th year scholarships. Then School B (or conference B) says we are funding them, how can you keep the player from transferring if it might save him/her say 10K or more in college expenses - which are already unexpected costs to play in year 5? No way they would limit that student from transferring or taking the money. So, I imagine the reason the NCAA won't mandate honoring athletic awards is that they would be basically mandating a budget increase for a 5th year of funded players (even if they increased the scholarship limits) at a time that colleges will be needing to cut budgets in the face of decreased revenue. I think many colleges may say to the coach "honor the awards but within your budget" which is almost impossible since the 2020 recruits are signed already. A school would have to increase their budgets for sure and perhaps have the limits waived for a year to fund likely even 1 more scholarship. Now- If and When this were to hit Football (or basketball), then sh** would hit the fan. What I predict happening is that many of these 5th year players will go into the transfer portal and schools down the food chain will try to outbid each other to get them. Kinda happens that way now but you will have many more proven starters in the portal that may just move down a level to get paid for that extra year. I'm quite sure there will be coaches down that food chain that will find money for only one year for say, a starting pitcher. The system is set up for that and not sure you can prohibit that at this point. Many coaches keep some money on the side for transfers now anyway. Now they have to decide to keep that Sr on money, or maybe go for a transfer with that same money. Imagine if that happens in fall and then winter sports. Money is going to be very tight for some 20 and many 2021 prospects I think. Yikes!
So do Freshman, sophomores and juniors all get this year of eligibility back, too? That is a huge question I have. If not, why do the seniors get it? If yes, then this is going to be a 4-5 year issue for spring sports before it settles back into normalcy (of 4 classes rather than 5).
https://www.espn.com/college-sports...proves-extra-year-eligibility-spring-athletes The NCAA's decision will extend the eligibility of all spring-sport student-athletes -- not just seniors whose careers would have ended after the cancellation of their seasons -- and will allow schools to expand their rosters beyond current scholarship limits to account for incoming recruits and seniors who were expected to leave.
Thank you, Ping. That could have a significant impact on current high schoolers in those sports. There would be less of a need for them if the rosters are already large.
Sorry if I haven't been clear. None of this affects soccer directly just yet. Lost most or all of the Spring season but Fall rosters are not affected. Should Fall seasons be canceled, then as I said, sh** hits the fan big time. For soccer folks but financially for everyone, especially D1 programs that need that football revenue. For soccer, it would be the 21 college grads that could become 5th year's in Fall 21 so the roster and scholarship squeeze would be on HS 2021 recruits first. Smart coaches should be planning for this. Even at this point, some smaller schools will not survive this. If we don't have in-person classes in the Fall with normal enrollment, i.e. dorms safe and meal plans purchased, then I think there will be many schools that won't survive. Smaller privates without large endowments/rainy day funds are in real trouble. Also -the NCAA extended the "dead period" for D1/2 until May 31 so that covers Memorial Day events obviously. USYSA has canceled Nationals and Regionals already for the summer as well. Getting very serious folks.
I agree with the author of the article. I think the NCAA should have said spring sport participants get another year of eligibility but there are no scholarship increases. It stinks but putting these schools under such financial duress isn’t wise. And the students did get their scholarship money this spring. Only their eligibility was impacted. They still got their money. So giving them another year of money, while it seems nice, just creates more problems for schools and coaches.
Here is one concept to consider. If fall sports do get affected, then move the fall sports to the spring. Everyone keeps their scholarships for their full academic year and rosters stay the same. Biggest undertaking would be that every athletic department has a loaded spring, with soccer probably having to share facilities with lacrosse, and maybe football for certain schools. Also, if a senior was planning on graduating in December then he or she has to decide if they want to stay until May to play their last senior competitive season. But this could alleviate having to totally cut a year and instead shift the fall sports to the spring for one year. Would be weird watching football in March but we are in unusual times. Hopefully everyone is back on campus in January 2021 for spring semester classes and fans can attend and we will also have more health information to work with including if we were to get a second wave of the virus and if so we would hopefully be past it by then.
Eddie K hit on a good point above. If fall sports are cancelled I think there is a good chance in-person fall classes are cancelled. Coming from a father who has three college kids home now-the thought of another semester with them at home is terrifying But as Eddie K stated above that would be a huge loss with no room/board money coming in also.
There are already talks at the SEC office about cancelling all summer camps, and they are talking about an extended fall season to make up for the loss of the spring soccer season. All of it is still in deliberation, but they are considering different alternatives going forward. (*For soccer) (Have a close friend that works in the SEC office in Bham)
Are there any discussions of departments downsizing staff at anyone’s institutions? Or cutting programs? Saw Iowa State reduced the wage bill by 10 percent.
One thing to consider: Trump is bent on opening things back up sooner than we may think. He is ALL about himself and reelection, and he sees that imperiled by this economic crisis (he doesn't care a whit about the health aspect of this emergency). I'm convinced that he'll be pushing for a return to /something approaching/ normal activity in May or June latest. How that will be squared with the risk of renewed outbreaks, testing, social-distance regulations, etc.,I don't know, but on a scale that has "go slow and be extra cautious" on one end and "enough is enough, it's time to get this country cranked up again" on the other end, Trump, unsurprisingly, is quite firmly on the latter side. He is going to push the process, big-time, and is no doubt doing that right now. He talked to NFL and MLB and other sports-league executives last week and apparently impressed upon them his eagerness to get games going again. I'm sure the paramount goal is to back to business as usual by the fall--students back in class, universities running, restaurants open, etc. It's going to be a health risk vs. economic reward dynamic, and we'll see how it plays out.
I agree with what you said. I also think that this country will open up sometime this summer because by then the hospitals should be under control. That is what it will come down to with this admin. This virus is not going away anytime soon. So they need to get the hospitals under control and prepared for another uptick. We were not prepared the first time, and thus some cities were overwhelmed. The vast majority of hospitals in the US are relatively quiet. So they have time to prepare for the next uptick. But nothing can happen until NY, NJ, Louisiana, and a few others get under control.
Is the cure worse than the disease? Trump is a businessman and realizes we need to get the economy going. We need to follow a similar path as Sweden, have those in risk groups shelter in place while those who are not get back to work. Honestly, I'm tired of having my rights as an American infringed upon.
@Socr4evaH Feel free to keep going to Walmart with out a mask and watching Trump TV. But please don't visit grandma in her nursing home. Are you really going to send your kids back to school without knowing who has it, or had it? Really? Sit in a stadium with folks throwing beers after a goal or touchdown, without knowing who has it? I think I mentioned earlier that the best scenario is that we get a vaccine and it becomes widely available. Still saying 12-18 months for that. Another possibility is that we get everyone tested. Those with immunity or that don't have it could be out doing stuff, i.e. playing baseball in AZ or training at Bayern Munich. The reason this is such a long way off and the CA Governor was dismissive about Fall sport is that CA is one of the richest states in the union and they have tested about .5% of their total population. That's half of 1%. And Trump has said very recently that testing is 'on the States' and something about how the "federal govt is not supposed to be out testing on every street corner" or some bs like that. So, if we were suddenly testing 3M people a week, which we are not, that would take 110 weeks to get to 330 million Americans. Let's say we could start schools and sports if we got to 33% of Americans tested - so that's about 36 weeks so maybe about Thanksgiving - still no fall sports and lots of cuts. If Trump (or anyone) wanted to get sports started again, and kids back in schools, they would be trying to test every American and make that a super high priority. But the incompetence in our Federal response to this thing is shocking. The very thing that could get us back "in business" he wants to leave to the States. So, the NCAA is going to say go ahead Big10, most of your States have tested, but the SEC, sorry Arkansas and Alabama haven't done enough testing. Never going to happen. And please remember, the first day after the peak of the outbreak, is going to still be the 2nd worst day of the outbreak. This is not going to just go away when a curve changes direction on a chart.
No one said it is going away. We will get another uptick. We need to make sure the hospitals are prepared. They will get things moving well before a vaccine comes into play. And, there is no rule that says we all have to be tested. 80% of the people respond on their own just fine. Opening up the economy doesn't have to mean stadium crowds. There are ways you ease into it. And, there have been no signs of any outbreaks in schools.
Heard an interesting NPR report (not exactly Trump enthusiasts) on the coronavirus shutdown and how it will literally starve MILLIONS across the globe to death and literally set back billions in poverty to levels not seen in 30 years. The basic argument was the world needs to get things open "sooner than we may think." The U.N.,Wash. Post, NY Times, BBC all have reports that warn of the impacts of the global economic shutdown on developing nations and beyond. “For the billions of workers in poor countries who were already scraping by – pulling rickshaws, picking tea or sewing clothes – there are no safety nets such as sick pay or government assistance,” "they cannot obey curfew orders if it means their families will starve." At some point global economies will need to open and as a result more people will die from the virus. Everyone will debate this for a long time. My point is simply that there are moral/ethical arguments for keeping things quarantined and for opening economies.
As in, Give me Grandma and kill millions of poor people! Easy choice for some. For me it is not as clear or moral as some may pontificate.
Let's see: if it wasn't about someone's Grandma but about you, what would you say? Would you willingly sacrifice your life to save millions of poor people from starving? Interested in your honest answer (and to this question, not to "running the vague risk of infecting yourself but with high chances of making it alive": would you actually die to save millions? If you would, you're a better human being than me).
Earlier in the thread I posted about the rate of transmission (Ro number) of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) and compared it to past/current Ro numbers of other viruses and outbreaks. At that time I stated that the average Ro at a 95% confidence interval was about 3.28. What that means, when looked at in a historical context, is that it could be possible that approximately 60% to 65% (probably at 62%) of the population will need to have the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) antibody or be immunized in order for the "herd immunity" threshold to be reached. Since that time it appears as if that number has remained somewhat stagnant but may have slightly trended upward but we're still within that 60%-65% range. Here is that post - https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-corona-season.2109295/page-3#post-38604968 It is still difficult to determine if that Ro will remain stagnant, trend upward, or trend downward. When I made the above post there was limited data available too far prior to that time. There was a small study in the International Journal of Infectious Disease that was published in late February. The population of the study was the passengers that were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The study concluded that the median Ro with 95% confidence interval (CI) was at 2.28. I believe that the disparity in numbers, even though the sample size was small, shows the uncertainty of the trajectory of COVID-19. (This is really dry but here is an abstract of the study - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32097725 ) To your point of getting everyone tested, that will be crucial in getting back to the status quo and, unfortunately, we are woefully unprepared for testing. There is a good chance that more have the antibody than is known but that can't be assessed without more testing. There are more than likely quite a few people that became mildly sick and recovered relatively easily. It is important that these people are able to be tested. Give me a break! This isn't easy for anyone. Everyone wants to get back to how we were. If we attempt to do that too hastily, though, there will be a big setback and the alternative will be much worse than what we are now experiencing. There will be many more deaths. This is not a simple flu that we are talking about here. The flu kills 1000s in the USA every year. If we get back to things too fast we are talking about the numbers of deaths being much higher than that. Did you ever wonder if that might be because kids at universities have vacated the campus and went to online learning? The same is true all shools, elementary, secondary, and otherwise. What does "washing through" mean? Is that anything like our grifter president claiming that COVID-19 will be miraculously gone?
Great post. We can't leave out all the others that gave us such great health advice on this virus. Here is the New York City Health Commissioner: As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus. pic.twitter.com/r4gNWklGPX— Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, MD, PhD (@NYCHealthCommr) February 2, 2020 NYC “Health Commissioner” Oxiris Barbot on Feb. 7th: “We’re telling New Yorkers, go about your lives, take the subway, go out, enjoy life” pic.twitter.com/28mhwdBCK4— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 27, 2020 Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see “The Traitor” @FilmLinc. If “The Wire” was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film.— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) March 3, 2020 Nancy Pelosi- "Come to Chinatown" https://www.air.tv/watch?v=bzdqGphZST2ZPwqNcI2doQ Grifters everywhere.