For Arizona State, there was too much uncertainty before the scheduled start of preseason practiceGETTY IMAGES
Arizona State President Michael Crow said ASU and the Pac-12 are "not simply buying time" to combat the pandemic by postponing athletics until at least January, but they are also "buying knowledge," according to Jeff Metcalfe of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC. Crow: "We're acquiring additional skills, knowledge, know how, systems, technologies. It's not going away. We've just got to figure out how to manage it the best we can." Metcalfe wrote for Crow, there was "too much uncertainty on multiple fronts before the scheduled start of preseason practice and, for ASU, with in-person classes beginning Aug. 20." Crow: "At some point you start running out of time. There was too much variability between the places that the teams were playing and practicing in. So out of an abundance of caution and abundance of fairness to both the athletes and the schools and the team and a desire to operate as a unanimous conference, we just thought why don’t we just put this off, put all of our energy into focusing on the student-athlete’s academic and personal and mental development and fitness success this semester. Then let's see what we can make happen in an exciting way this spring." Still, Crow "can envision a March day game at Sun Devil Stadium perhaps with basketball and baseball on the same day" (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 8/15).
TESTING IS KEY: In Milwaukee, Jeff Potrykus asked if the saliva-based COVID-19 test newly approved for public use by the FDA could "save college athletics in 2020-21?" The SalivaDirect test is expected to cost only $10, and results "could be available in only a few hours and perhaps no more than 24 hours." It is said to be 88-94% accurate. Meanwhile, Univ. of Wisconsin researchers have been "testing volunteers this summer with a saliva test." UW AD Barry Alvarez, speaking to reporters during a Zoom session last week, "acknowledged the current inability to secure rapid test results played a role in the Big Ten’s decision to shut down fall sports." Alvarez on UW's saliva test: “We were really excited about that, but we just couldn’t move it fast enough. Those are things we are hoping can be rectified and we could have available come spring" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 8/16).
COULD HAVE DONE BETTER: In Cleveland, Doug Lesmerises wrote the Big Ten's decision to cancel football this fall "might be right," but it is "clear that the conference came to the decision the wrong way." Lesmerises: "Process matters, and the way the Big Ten went about canceling fall sports added layers of questions, complaints, distrust and dissatisfaction to what was already a complicated and sensitive decision." League Commissioner Kevin Warren and the school presidents who made the decision "could have handled things far better" (Cleveland PLAIN DEALER, 8/16).
NON-HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS? In St. Louis, Dave Matter asks, "Why were the Big Ten and Pac-12 so quick to call it quits?" He writes, "Yes, there are hues of partisan politics mixed into these grueling choices. Governors and lawmakers in the Pac-12’s blue-state footprint have been more cautious to re-open their states compared to their peers in the Midwest and the Southeast. But only the most beaten-down cynic would have you believe the Pac-12 and Big Ten schools care more about their athletes’ health and safety than the other conferences." Athletes in the Pac-12 and Big Ten "called for systemic change within the NCAA power structure with the #WeAreUnited and #BigTenUnited movements." Matter: "You can’t convince me it’s a coincidence" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 8/17). Angela de Cespedes, a corporate lawyer with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, said, “I don’t believe in coincidences. ... There are so many different factors at play here that I don’t think the decision was made purely from a health and safety standpoint. The fact that the Big Ten and Pac-12 decided to pull the plug when they did, quite frankly, was an effort to stop the bleeding" (L.A. TIMES, 8/16).
ANOTHER CALL FOR "FOOTBALL CZAR": In New Orleans, Scott Rabalais wrote conferences have been "left to blaze their own trails into the foggy pandemic unknown," which has "revealed the clear and desperate need for centralized leadership for college football." In terms of the Power Five and the Group of Five conferences, the NCAA has "long ago abdicated leadership and governance in many important areas," but when it comes to "sport-wide policy, especially in the face of something as dangerous and life-altering as a pandemic, the NCAA has proven to be more woefully impotent than it often appears to be." Rabalais: "It is high time for some sort of 'football czar,' appointed by college football’s loose affiliation of practitioners, who can make decisions they all have to follow" (Baton Rouge ADVOCATE, 8/16).
