Ohio state and other soccer teams around the Big Ten are slated to start preseason camp within a week of today, but whether that will happen is still up in the air.
According to a letter sent Thursday to Big Ten sports directors by Commissioner Kevin Warren and Chris Kratochvil, chair of the conference working group for emerging infectious diseases, a decision will be made on whether preseason camp will start as currently scheduled. “It will be taken within the next 5 days.”
“We will not proceed and we will not be able to continue the preseason camp until we are sure that we can do it safely and that will depend, in part, on the evidence,” the letter says. “Once we have everything in place to run our testing protocols effectively, including the right amount of testing ensured for all fall sports, we can make a decision on whether preseason camp will start as currently scheduled.”
According to Thursday’s letter, the Big Ten continue “hoping to compete this fall on the field through men and women, field hockey, soccer, men’s and women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball, understanding that we must operate in a in a way that seeks to address the challenges that COVID-19 presents. “However, the letter also states that health and safety remain the” main focus “of the conference, and that fall sports could still be canceled if the conference does not Trust that they can be played safely.
“If we determine as a Conference that it is unwise to compete in the fall of 2020, we will not, as will our decision in March 2020 to cancel the Men’s Basketball Tournament in Indianapolis,” the letter says. “Our final decision will be based on the guidance of medical experts and in consultation with institutional leadership, student athletes, coaches, and appropriate federal, state and local authorities.”
The conference plans to launch its medical policies and protocols for the return of sports next week. Those protocols “will include standardized medical testing requirements that will be consistently evaluated to ensure that we are taking into account current medical recommendations.”
“We believe that the implementation of these protocols will help us mitigate risk as we seek to safely resume sports activity and competition,” the letter says.
While multiple reports on Thursday indicated that Big Ten could release a soccer schedule for the conference only as early as Friday, “the schedule for fall sports remains fluid” according to Thursday’s letter, but the conference hopes to publish schedules. for each of your fall sports sometime in August hoping to start the fall sports season in September.
“Conference administrators, coaches and staff have been working daily to create schedules that provide the appropriate levels of flexibility to respond in real time to necessary changes,” the letter says. “While we hope to start in September 2020, flexibility has been created within our programming models to accommodate the necessary adjustments. Based on our collective need to be adaptable to changing circumstances and evolving medical knowledge, even issuing a schedule does not guarantee that competition will occur. ”
The letter also reiterated, as previously announced earlier this month, that all participation in fall sports will be optional and that any athlete who chooses not to participate in athletics during the 2020-21 academic year due to concerns about COVID-19 They will continue to have their scholarships honored and remain in good standing with their teams.
“We cannot emphasize enough that participation at any time during the 2020 season is voluntary,” the letter says.
