All eyes have been on the NCAA as of late. The decision of whether or not to play college football this fall has received all of the headlines.
Which conferences are going to try to play? People continue to debate if they think that college football can be played at this stage of the coronavirus pandemic.
No NCAA Championships
After the Big East dropped out of fall sports on Wednesday, that made less than 50% of FBS schools still trying to play a season. The departure led to the announcement to cancel NCAA championships by NCAA president Mark Emmert.
“The board of governors also established if you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship,” Emmert said in a video posted on the NCAA’s Twitter feed. “We can’t in any Division I NCAA championship sport now — which is everything other than FBS football that goes on in the fall. Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full stop.”
However, some schools still want to move forward with playing fall sports. West Virginia’s Athletic Director, Shane Lyons, said that just because there aren’t NCAA sponsored championships, doesn’t mean that the fall has to be ruined for these student-athletes.
Criticism
Everyone has been quick to criticize the leaders of the NCAA. There wasn’t much of a plan to protect these fall student-athletes, both on and off the field.
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum was on “Get Up” and expressed his feelings about Emmert’s leadership.
“It’s easy for Mark Emmert to pass the buck. But he’s the single most influential person — at least image-wise and perceptively — in the system of intercollegiate athletics, and he hasn’t offered one thing,” Finebaum said. “He has been a complete embarrassment. And part of this is his fault. He has not spoken out, he has not said anything but passing the buck.”
The NCAA has been late to respond to this pandemic. Some student-athletes have already contracted the virus after being on campus to begin workouts.
Fans have turned their attention to school and conference leaders for answers rather than anyone from the NCAA.
Some have thought that they need to focus more on controlling the virus in the first place.
“I feel like the Titanic. We have hit the iceberg, and we’re trying to make decisions of what time should we have the band play,” said Carlos Del Rio, who serves on an NCAA COVID-19 advisory panel. “We need to focus on what’s important. What’s important right now is we need to control this virus. Not having fall sports this year, in controlling this virus, would be to me the No. 1 priority.”
If college sports in the fall played and failed, it would be hard to allow basketball to move forward. At this point, ramifications need to be put in place for the return of college sports. Maybe not in the fall, but soon.
