The Big Ten and Pac 12 may be ready to give up on football in the fall, but they have yet to give up on the idea of playing out the 2019-20 season. Both conferences announced on Tuesday that they will postpone bankruptcy sports with the goal of playing out the season in the spring. It is not unreasonable to expect other Power 5 leagues to follow suit.
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The first logical question to ask is, “Shall we then have this pandemic under control?” But I’m not sure it’s the right question to ask if the safety of players is really the biggest concern. Even if the NCAA could invent all the logistics and ensure players are kept safe – two very large “Ifs” - I have to ask: Should we ask unpaid athletes to play span in two eight months in two football seasons?
I assume that if these leagues are meant to be played in the spring, they also plan to kick off the 2021 season on time. So from March to November, college players would participate in about 24 games, a few give or take. Toss the practice time extra and we ask many young players whose bodies are not fully developed.
Playing in the spring raises many logistical questions: When does the preparation for this spring competition begin? How long does the season last? How much time will there be between the end of spring competition and the start of the 2021 season? Will there be restrictions on practice time?
None of the possible answers would be satisfactory to anyone who actually cares about the importance of “student-athletes”. We may not know much about the long-term effects of this virus, but we do know enough about the long-term effects of football, and everything we know suggests that playing two seasons worth of games in one calendar year is a terrible idea. It is also an immorality that would be completely driven by the financial interests of everyone besides the players.
I have no doubt that many players after one calendar year will have to play two seasons and endorse such a schedule, allowing the ghouls to run conferences and their water in sports media bearing such accusations. But players who say they want to play does not make it safer. Ask the same players about targeting penalties and other rules intended to make the game safer. You will hear similar answers. Players do not always make decisions with their own best interests in mind.
And, no, that’s not a suggestion that we should ignore the voices of these athletes on all topics – only those topics that require input from medical experts. Whether they should be paid or not does not fall into that bin – especially if you are one of the people who indicate how important football is to these schools and local economies. Essential workers, as we describe these players, must be paid. There is no area of gray there.
I do not this is a controversial statement: Players need a whole season to recover from what they put their bodies through in a long, resentful season. Well, they will not get that if they play in the spring. It is not even an option worth exploring. These conferences should just rip the band-aid out, give up this season and start concentrating on how you can work the 2021 season in a way that will not put athletes at risk.
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