President Trump has joined Big Ten players, their parents and fans in protesting the conference's decisionGETTY IMAGES
President Trump on Thursday "took aim" at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for the second time in less than a week, "again suggesting she is preventing the state's two Big Ten-affiliated schools from playing football this fall," according to Aaron McMann of MLIVE.com. Trump said, "We want a governor that's going to let Michigan play Big Ten football this year. We've been seeing a lot of the other schools want to open up the Big Ten, at my suggestion." Trump had a phone conversation with Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren on Sept. 1, one both parties "later characterized as 'productive.'" But Trump, up for reelection in November and needing to win the battleground states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, "has joined Big Ten players, their parents and fans in protesting the league's decision." Trump said, "You have a very good commissioner. He's working very hard, and hopefully very soon you're going to play football" (MLIVE.com, 9/10). In Newark, Steve Politi notes Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway made it clear that the school "will not change its vote on resuming college athletics until better testing is in place and the coronavirus is under control." Holloway said that Trump's involvement "will have no impact on how he proceeds." Holloway: "It's just cheap politics, I want that person to be paying attention to matters of national security and national importance. This does not rise to that level -- not for a half second" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 9/11).
NOT ABSOLUTE: THE ATHLETIC's Landis & Auerbach cited a source as saying that the Big Ten restarting competition at the end of October is "not out of the question, under the assumption that Big Ten campuses are outfitted with equipment to produce daily tests by the end of September." The source said that the league's Council of Presidents and Chancellors is "expected to be briefed by the conference's medical subcommittee this weekend and -- if the group feels confident based on that information -- could vote on a restart date as soon as Sunday." The source added that it is "possible the league moves forward but individual schools still opt not to play in 2020." Testing access and capabilities, community spread and the pressure on the local healthcare systems "all played into the league's decision to postpone." In order to return to play safely, those deficiencies "will need to be addressed -- and offset." That is why they remain the "biggest hurdle for the league to clear in its eventual plan to restart" (THEATHLETIC.com, 9/10).
HOUSE DIVIDED: In Chicago, Teddy Greenstein writes Warren is "trapped in a hellscape," and he "might need a flame-retardant suit for all the heat he's getting." A source called the league "a divided house" and "a circus." Greenstein notes Warren is a "man of substance with a strong moral compass," but he "wildly miscalculated the reaction to canceling the 10-game schedule he unveiled six days earlier." His communications team "let him down." And his decades "away from the college game precluded him from building the kind of relationships in college sports that [former Big Ten Commissioner] Jim Delany had and [Northwestern AD] Jim Phillips has" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 9/11).
