Many questions remain. One pressing question: If and how student-athletes may still work-out in university facilities?
Athletics Veritas is a weekly series aimed at helping higher education executives, faculty, and other stakeholders stay tuned in on trending national issues impacting college athletics, especially NCAA Division I. Athletics Veritas is created by senior DI athletic administrators around the nation.
After COVID-19 Deep-Sixed Remaining NCAA Sports Seasons: How The NCAA Empowered its Member Schools to Navigate the Crisis and One of Many Questions Still Burning
Executive Summary
Winter and Spring 2020 NCAA Championships canceled due to COVID-19
NCAA empowers NCAA Member Schools to make real-time decisions in support Student-Athletes in time of crisis irrespective of NCAA rules
NCAA institutes month-long, all-sport “dead period” restricting on and off-campus in-person recruiting of any kind.
Many questions remain including this one: If and how student-athletes may still work-out in university facilities?
In a flash, so it seems, the routines of American life were upended last week due to the spread of the corona virus (aka COVID-19) that moved America’s awareness speedometer from 25 to 85 mph or faster than you can say ‘social distancing.’
A pandemic that moved from a distant, early warning from overseas news reports a mere few weeks ago to an all engrossing, health-crisis sur-reality at our doorstep.
The world health crisis has been all consuming. Americans, like citizens of the world, are ascertaining daily the latest CDC edict or health care talking head’s take on cable news. We are digesting data, charts, and symptom-lists. We are running through a litany of social media posts to decipher the truth. We are interested in test-kit availability updates, we are counting to 20 when washing our hands, and we are soaking in the constant news flashes on our smartphones. A 411 flurry for an information society---all demographics affected, no locations immune.
The higher education and college sports realms are certainly not immune to COVID-19. Some American universities have shut down, others have retooled all spring classes to on-line delivery only while others are mandating remote-working options, among other, mitigating steps.
Keeping in line with the core purpose of Athletics Veritas, this week we cannot ignore the blunt force of COVID-19’s impacts on college sports. The biggest headline in NCAA circles this past week certainly was the cancelation of March Madness and all other winter and spring sport NCAA championships. Gulp.
Seasons and dreams came to a screeching halt. A mind-boggling new reality to the college sports world.
As those decisions unfolded, the NCAA national office released on Friday March 13th (can’t avoid the cryptic irony there) the following statement to its membership about COVID-19:
“NCAA academic and membership affairs (AMA) has received numerous questions regarding the implication of actions conferences and institutions have taken or might take in response to COVID-19. These questions have related to a wide-range of regulations including eligibility, membership requirements and student-athlete benefits.
Most importantly, conferences and institutions are encouraged to make decisions and take action in the best interests of their student-athletes and communities. Conferences and institutions should not be concerned about the application of NCAA legislation when decisions are being made in response to COVID-19.
AMA will continue to respond to individual questions through normal and emergency avenues. When responses will have broad-based relevance to the membership, these responses will be posted on LSDBi and communicated through the usual conference contact programs.”
Division I schools’ coaches and administrators scrambled (and continue to) trouble-shoot a wide-array of questions and scenarios sprouting up last week. From student-athlete housing and travel needs as schools move to closure to medical checks and quarantines at the first sign of flu-symptoms to circulating sanitizing and hygiene products and other support needs.
The key phrasing in the NCAA’s statement from last week is that there’s wide-latitude for NCAA schools to make the best decisions for the health and safety of its student-athletes and others without feeling the restraints of NCAA rules in light of COVID-19.
If a Division I women’s tennis student-athlete from Brazil was competing on the road, but was compelled to fly to her home country because her university was closing, her school could financially assist. If members of the softball team needed extra groceries to get them through the next couple weeks because campus dining services closed, schools could help them there as well. If a university moved all classes exclusively to on-line delivery and a few student-athletes needed help securing WiFi access, schools could help there, too.
Many of these type of tangible benefits to Division I student-athletes may have necessitated the school filing a waiver with the NCAA national office seeking relief from normal application of NCAA rules. Under the most dire and extreme circumstances we find ourselves, though, such red-tape could be cut out from the start based on this campus empowerment.
And this is a good thing. Let institutions focus energy on supporting student-athletes’ health and safety through nimble, real-time decision-making that is not encumbered by a 400-page rule book.
To be sure, there are many more campus, conference, and national-level questions facing higher education due to COVID-19 that transcend athletics and remain unanswered. Has your school canceled spring commencement? Is your school furloughing staff? What about those canceled SAT test dates? Many questions and numerous ‘what if’ scenarios are coming in by the hour. Under the NCAA umbrella, though, there is room to reasonably triage in an emergency.
Another step the NCAA got right was when the Division I Council Coordination Committee adopted emergency legislation to prohibit any in-person, on or off-campus recruiting effective immediately through April 15. With COVID-19 spreading across the States and risks identified around travel and exposure to groups, this was very sensible. It also allows coaches, prospects, and others to not worry about recruiting for foreseeable future and, instead, focus energies on individual safety and the evolving impacts COVID-19 has on our daily lives.
There’s at least one burning, athletics-specific question alit and garnering much attention in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak in America: Are Division I student-athletes allowed to work out in their team’s athletic facilities even on an individual, voluntary basis in light of campus-access restrictions?
Each NCAA institution is sorting out its CVOID-19 protocols and emergency-action plan implementations, day by day. At this time, coaches cannot require a student-athlete to participate in any required athletic activities these days in light of mandates restricting official athletic activities.
Division I schools halted conference basketball tournaments in real time and have suspended official athletic activities (like team practice) from occurring on or off-campus moving forward. Based on preventative directives from healthcare community, groups of ten or more (like a soccer or baseball team) are discouraged from congregating in light of COVID-19. All signs point to not doing any organized athletic activity.
Alas, if an institution’s student recreation center is open to all students, could a women’s basketball student-athlete go on her own to her team’s basketball practice gym to get some free-throws in?
Understandably, this matter is not the most critical today. Nor tomorrow.
But student-athletes and coaches are asking the question. Some Division I schools may be permitting individual student-athletes to work out in their athletics facilities while other Division I schools may be on absolute shut-down with no facility access to anyone.
Some may worry about inequitable facility access between institutions that could lead to perceived “competitive inequities." One student-athlete at School A gets to work-out and tells the world on social media about it while a competitor down the road at School B has no work-out options on campus and is stuck.
Student-athletes have gone from significant athletic activity a week ago down to bare-bones in a matter of days. That downturn presents a shock to the student-athlete system. The void of training and work-out opportunities can impact one’s physical, emotional, and mental well-being especially for individuals who are so closely identified by their ‘student-athlete’ status. (Did we mention some Division I athletes are trying to train for the Summer Olympics?) Under this time of duress, student-athletes are seeking some familiar outlets to work on their athletic craft, even if on their own, in a confined area, without apparent COVID-19 exposure risks.
As with many things in life, Division I schools may need to be comfortable, at least in the short-term, with differing outcomes and solutions to this question of individual workouts and facility access especially if a universal restriction isn’t coming from the NCAA.
In the end, the health and safety of all campus stakeholders, including student-athletes, as well as the public at large need to be the guideposts to institutional decision-making.
The NCAA did well last week to empower member schools to make decisions in the best interest of student-athletes irrespective of traditional NCAA restrictions noting such autonomy leads to varying outcomes from campus to campus.
COVID-19 mania is fluid. It is this year’s March Madness and will run well beyond March.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
