Put this in the category of doom and gloom. While appearing in a live chat on the NCAA’s Twitter channel, NCAA president Mark Emmert said that he can’t see having fall sports without in-person classes on college campuses first happening, according to a piece by Steve Berkowitz of USA TODAY .
“All of the commissioners and every president that I’ve talked to is in clear agreement: If you don’t have students on campus, you don’t have student-athletes on campus,” said Emmert when discussing Division I.
“That doesn’t mean it has to be up and running in the full normal model, but you’ve got to treat the health and well-being of the athletes at least as much as the regular students. So if a school doesn’t reopen, then they’re not going to be playing sports. It’s really that simple.”
Emmert and chief medical officer Brian Hainline also went on to say that contract tracing and testing both need to dramatically improve. He also suggested that schools could start their athletic programs at different times, creating difficulty in selecting teams for the postseason. He stressed that athletes must be given enough time in the preseason to compete without risking their health as well, and that the scheduling can be dealt with as secondary to that.
“We would much rather relax some of those competitive-equity issues than ever put a young man or young woman at risk, physically or mentally.”
This sure feels like some sour news in a time when many businesses and states are beginning to re-open life as we once knew it among this COVID-19 pandemic. We’re still months away from fall sports, but this definitely paints a grim picture of how many obstacles have to be cleared for college football and other fall athletic events to get off the ground this year.
We’ll stay on top of any further developments.
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