The NCAA announced Monday night that it would grant an extra year of eligibility to spring athletes whose seasons were cut short due to COVID-19.
The NCAA did a lot right in how they’re dealing with this situation, but there is one major flaw. Let’s discuss what the NCAA got right first, before we move on to the big mistake.
What the NCAA got right
The NCAA was faced with a huge dilemma here. How do you allow athletes to play an extra year without messing with the incoming freshman class or putting a huge financial burden on schools who can’t afford to give out extra scholarships–especially as there are very few money-making sports in the spring.
The NCAA essentially had two solutions for this. The first is that the schools don’t have to offer scholarships. They can, but they don’t have to. Additionally, the NCAA’s fund for student support will be available to help cover these scholarships. I don’t know if the organization has enough to cover everyone–it just had to slash the annual payout to DI schools because of the basketball tournament’s cancellation–but it will clearly do what it can.
Next, the NCAA is raising scholarship and roster limits. This means that schools will have bigger rosters over the next few years as the current players use their extra eligibility. It might hamper playing time a bit with bigger rosters, but it’s the only real solution. (The release did not indicate if there would be anything to mitigate the fact that those with more freshman this year will have bigger rosters for a longer period of time.)
Winter sports
The NCAA made one major mistake, though. Winter sport athletes who did not finish their seasons will not be granted another year. Even though almost no NCAA Championships were completed for the winter, in any division, the NCAA still (apparently) felt that because the large majority of most of the seasons were completed, that’s enough to not grant an extra year.
This will obviously disappoint basketball fans and players nationwide, as well as plenty of other sports. Many Buckeyes will be impacted, and you can’t help but feel for guys like Kollin Moore. It took a combination of illness, an otherworldly talent like Bo Nickal, and a full-on cancellation of the NCAAs to keep Moore from winning a National Championship during his four years in Columbus.
We can hope that the NCAA will change their decision on winter athletes, because the abrupt ending to careers like this is very much not fair. At least the NCAA did right by the spring athletes, though.
