NCAA President Mark Emmert released a statement on Friday that was his most definitive yet about the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on next season’s collegiate athletics.
“It is clear that the format of our championships will have to change if they are to be conducted in a safe and fair manner,” the statement reads in part.
The statement came 2 days before Arizona State’s swimming & diving teams became the first Power 5 varsity athletics programs to announce that they would not compete during the 2020-2021 season, instead choosing to redshirt their entire roster.
Emmert said discussions about the 22 NCAA championships scheduled to be held at the end of the fall season will be continued in August.
“Today the Board of Governors and I agreed that we must continue to thoughtfully and aggressively monitor health conditions around the country and the implementation of the COVID-19 guidelines we issued last week,” Emmert said. “The health and well-being of college athletes is the highest priority in deciding whether to proceed with our 22 NCAA championships beginning in late November. We all remain deeply concerned about the infection trend lines we see. It is clear that the format of our championships will have to change if they are to be conducted in a safe and fair manner. We discussed other complexities in addition to the health and safety impacts, to include team availability, travel limitations and various local and state restrictions. We will continue our discussions in August.”
As the school year draws nearer-and-nearer, there seems to be weekly runs on new decisions for the collegiate athletics season. Division III of the NCAA appears to be on its way to pushing off intercollegiate athletics for the entirety of the fall season, and the footsteps are becoming louder in Division I, with several mid-major conferences, and Arizona State swimming, delaying or canceling seasons.
The only fall aquatic sport is men’s water polo.
Note that, while NCAA football is a fall sport, in FBS, the most visible level of college football, no NCAA National Championship is awarded. The College Football Playoff is not an NCAA Championship event.
2020-2021 Fall Sports NCAA Championships Schedule
Division I:
- Women’s Field Hockey – November 20-22, 2020, Norfolk, Virginia
- Men’s Cross Country Finals – November 21, 2020, Stillwater, Oklahoma
- Women’s Cross Country Finals – November 21, 2020, Stillwater, Oklahoma
- Women’s Soccer – December 4-6, 2020, Cary, North Carolina
- Men’s Soccer – December 11-13, 2020, Santa Barbara, California
- Women’s Volleyball – December 17-19, 2020, Omaha, Nebraska
- Men’s FCS Football Championship – January 9, 2021, Site TBD
National Collegiate (where there is only one division in the NCAA):
- Men’s National Collegiate Water Polo Finals – December 5-6, 2020, Stanford, California
Division II:
- Women’s Field Hockey – November 20-22, 2020, Bloomsburg, PA
- Women’s Cross Country Finals – November 21, 2020 – Evansville, Indiana
- Men’s Cross Country Finals – November 21, 2020 – Evansville, Indiana
- Women’s Soccer – December 10-12, 2020, Tampa, Florida
- Men’s Soccer – December 10-12, 2020, Tampa, Florida
- Women’s Volleyball – December 10-12, 2020 – Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- Football Championship – December 19, 2020, McKinney, Texas
Division III:
- Women’s Volleyball – November 19-21, 2020, Columbus, Ohio
- Women’s Field Hockey – November 21-22, 2020, TBD location
- Women’s Cross Country Finals – November 21, 2020, Terra Haute, Indiana
- Men’s Cross Country Finals, November 21, 2020, Terra Haute, Indiana
- Men’s Soccer Finals – December 4-5, 2020, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Women’s Soccer Finals – December 4-5, 2020, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Football – December 18-19, 2020, Canton, Ohio
Is it possible to have an outdoor conference/NCAA pushed later in the spring? This could help find a venue that could make seating and the overall deck space bigger? This won’t solve everything, but if it is insisted on having a postseason meet, this is one approach that could help?
Would almost have to be in FL or CA and be in late-March/early-April, prime spring break time for both locales.
The Miami Marlins just proved that if you don’t do the whole NBA Bubble thing, it ain’t gonna work. NCAA knows this now.
It’s too bad, because the Premier League did so well with their middle-ground solution, which was largely predicated on the fact that national levels had reduced to such a point where it wasn’t essentially a guarantee that someone on the team would get it and then spread it.
For the Marlins, in Miami, the odds of nobody getting it were between slim-and-none. And what’s clear in all situations (premier league and otherwise) is that teammates/athletes let their guard down when they’re together. Hugging, face to face stuff, crowding in groups – if one has it, it’s probably going to spread.
Yeah, well that national level train left the station about a month ago. Six MLB teams in the nation’s hotspots, with everyone else flying in and out of their airports and coming into contact with them. Now consider college-age kids that don’t have full-time team security tracking them and trying to get them to comply. Zero chance it ends well.
All college kids.. not just the athletes will contract the virus just by virtue of living in such close quarters and having less life experience to give them healthy amount of fear required to practice best safety protocols. It seems to me that if the schools are ‘open for business’ then the athletics might as well move forward as well in some fashion.
For what it’s worth, the Marlins haven’t been in Florida for a while now. They were on the road for at least the last week.
Also pointing out that the MLB didn’t screw over the other 29 teams by overreacting. There’s a plan in place (included expanded rosters) and they’re moving forward.
Meanwhile, as of now, all 14 positives….asymptomatic. And haven’t been spread to another team.
point DRSWIMPHIL, FUD goes to longhorn
Three games canceled so far. Two Phillies with COVID-like symptoms. And it’s a little early to claim “it hasn’t spread to another team.” Check back with me in a week on that. You recall Desantis “had a plan in place” too. That worked out well. I’m not talking about kids dying, I’m talking about the financial disruption of planning big events, sponsorships, etc., and then having to cancel them. So far, MLB has lost money with the canceled games and the season just started. Do you think the NCAAs pockets are so deep without football and basketball revenue?
I get you won’t agree with me, but DeSantis has had a plan in place, and has done so while not bowing down to the NY/LA/DC media pressure. He’s walked the line of virus + economy (protecting the at-risk while not allowing the local economy to tank as much as other states) about as well as any politician can (and yes, that includes making proper adjustments that are data/science-driven), given that a virus is gonna virus. And now FL is on the back-end of a curve that never got close to the doomers claimed would happen.
Side note: want to read about NCAA (and specifically CFB, the money-driver)? Here’s a very good article: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/story/2020-07-27/zeigler-ncaa-college-football-athletic-directors-coronavirus-covid-season-cancel-postpone
I’m not sure what being on the road for a week has to do with anything… 7-14 days after exposure is when folks tend to test positive… so they probably picked it up in the hot sport of Miami.
From CDC.gov
Although replication-competent virus was not isolated 3 weeks after symptom onset, recovered patients can continue to have SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in their upper respiratory specimens for up to 12 weeks (Korea CDC, 2020; Li et al., 2020; Xiao et al, 2020). Investigation of 285 “persistently positive” persons, which included 126 persons who had developed recurrent symptoms, found no secondary infections among 790 contacts attributable to contact with these case patients. Efforts to isolate replication-competent virus from 108 of these case patients were unsuccessful (Korea CDC, 2020).
The MLBs “plan” is anything but. Read this SI piece https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/07/27/marlins-covid-outbreak-operations-manual. MLB has zero guidance on what to do with a large outbreak on a team. In fact, the idiot Marlins players just decided via group chat to go on and play against the Phillies. No group quarantine. Zero guidance from management or MLB. No concern for hotel staff, caterers, limo drivers, etc. Just play ball. So that’s MLB’s great “plan.”
What is your dog in this fight Ol Longhorn other than hating trump? Honestly curious. Do you have kids? Grandkids? Do you run a business? Have you been treating Covid patients in your healthcare job?
NHL saw the numbers and kept the Hub/Bubble out of the US.
How’s the bubble going in Orlando for MLS and NBA?
Oh, good, got it…
And then there’s Lou Williams leaving the NBA bubble to attend a funeral but on the way back had an uncontrollable urge for hot wings that they only serve at a strip club. Now he’s back in the bubble.
I mean, there wasn’t a Buffalo Wild Wings around?
Let the sports move forward in 2021. We’ve lost enough
The challenge is the choice isn’t between good and bad; it’s between awful and worse. Cancelling college athletics this (academic) year is an awful choice. Lost revenue, lost opportunity and yet another reminder of what this terrible pandemic has taken from us. Not cancelling them, though, could mean something far, far worse. Lost lives, survivors left with life long disabilities…
I’m no fan of the NCAA set-up, especially for sports like basketball & football. (Everyone makes tonnes of money except the people producing the product.) That’s another discussion, though. What is pertinent is that college athletes aren’t pros. They’re not getting paid and to ask them to take all the risk with no reward is a bridge too far.
These student athletes have a better chance being killed in a car crash driving to the competition than dying from corona. Let them go back. Everyone knows the risks, if they make the personal decision and take personal responsibility to subject themselves to china virus that is on them… same goes for coaches and fans. Stop trying to be some moral arbitrator to everyone and let the individual make the choice
That’s all fine. But it’s only going to take 1 death across any of these sports. Then watch what happens.
And here we are back to the “it only takes one” argument.
I’m glad the “it only takes one” rule doesn’t apply to everything.
I am fine with student athletes taking “personal responsibility” to make a “personal decision” about subjecting themselves to risk of catching Covid-19. To demonstrate commitment to personal responsibility and be allowed to compete, they should then sign and make public a statement that if they do happen to get infected, they will just ride out the illness where they live and PROMISE TO NOT GO TO ANY HOSPITAL so they will not further tax an overburdened healthcare system and subject medical personnel and other patients to infection.
I’m willing to gamble that if college sports continue (without fans) in regular fashion that there will be 0 deaths and 0 long term disabilities from student athletes assuming they pass an appropriate health screening prior to their season
That’s the point, though: You’re not doing the gambling. They are. That’s a hella ask for young men & women who have their whole lives in front of them.
I am a student athlete and based on all available statistics, I am 100% fine with assuming the risk by having a season. I assume more risk on Saturday nights in college than I would by participating in college athletics this year. Facts matter…
If you are 100% fine in assuming the risk, then you should be fine in assuming 100% of the consequence if something goes wrong. So make a public commitment, circulated to all your local hospitals, that if you do happen to come down with Covid-19 symptoms you will not seek treatment at any hospital or medical center, so that you will not add to an already stressed emergency medical response system and you will not subject doctors, nurses, and other patients to the disease.
There is a major fundamental difference here between normal college Saturday night partying risk and Covid-19 risk. If you get drunk on Saturday night and have to go to the ER, you are not subjecting the… Read more »
“survivors left with life long disabilities…”
That is the most significant aspect of your post. There has been ongoing denial here and everywhere else, from the same pathetic demographic that has been dependably wrong about everything. The damage to other organs is going to be more widespread than what has been reported so far, and greater complications. Here is a report from Germany that studied heart condition from people with average age 49. The Covid survivors had markedly worse readings than a similar aged group who did not catch the virus: https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/27/covid19-concerns-about-lasting-heart-damage/
“One study examined the cardiac MRIs of 100 people who had recovered from Covid-19 and compared them to heart images from… Read more »
Has the Dooger ever replied on anything that wasn’t corona or political in nature?
Since he’s taken a break from the Democratic Underground and decided to drop by with future forecasts, I wouldn’t mind a stock tip. ,💸
We don’t know if survivors are left with life long disabilities. In 10 years we’ll have a better idea, but 7 months in?
As for the long term effects and damage to other organs.. all of the information I have read is referring to patients who were hospitalized with severe cases of COVID. Most healthy young athletes who contract COVID are asymptomatic. We should start testing the college athletes for antibodies. I have a feeling that the positive antibody tests would outweigh the positive COVID’s.
I think you have misprint. He says discussions continue in August not November.
Looks like lots o swim coaches will be holding yard sales.
Thanks to Bob Bowman
Or the Miami Marlins.
Triathlon, an emerging NCAA sport, is scheduled to have its championships in mid-November in Tempe. A challenge for USA Triathlon, as the administrator of the event, is that its age group draft legal race is held in conjunction with the women’s NCAA event.
A gap year is looking like a good option :/