According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports, the NCAA voted Wednesday to allow athletes back on campus starting June 1 for voluntary football and basketball workouts.
Thamel wrote:
“An NCAA vote Wednesday cleared the return of student-athletes to campus in football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball on June 1 through June 30, multiple sources told Yahoo Sports.”
The decision ends the COVID-19 lock-down on athletic activities on campuses through May 31 and is, though just a small step towards normalcy, great news for sports fans and athletes around the country.
Sources reportedly told Yahoo Sports that the Division 1 council will vote on other sports besides football and basketball as soon as possible.
As far as testing procedures, it will be up to the individual school’s and state’s procedures and guidelines, according to Yahoo Sports’ sources.
“It will be up to the schools and political decision-makers to develop protocols on the tests, which cost approximately $100 each,” Thamel added. ““No one wants to get into that,” said a source. “They want to leave it to your own campus and state.””
The 2020 college football season is set to begin August 29 and Georgia football is scheduled to start its season in Atlanta versus Virginia on Sept. 7. What that will look like remains to be known. Last week, NCAA President Mark Emmert said:
“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. That doesn’t mean [the school] has to be up and running in the full normal model, but you have to treat the health and well-being of the athletes at least as much as the regular students. … If a school doesn’t reopen, then they’re not going to be playing sports. It’s really that simple.”
If the season does go on, most likely there will be a very limited number of people involved and judging by Emmert’s comments and the NBA’s reported plan of resuming their season without fans, we could also see a start to the football season without people in attendance.
