In Their Own Little World

I shouldn't be surprised that, despite the fact that the pandemic is nowhere near under control and that all fall NCAA Championships have been postponed, there's still that group of schools and conferences that are still going ahead with their plans to play college football in a few weeks--legitimate safety concerns be damned!  It's true of any sport, but it's especially true of college football, that those involved often can't see the big picture.  And that has never been truer than over the past few weeks.

Let's start with the "Stubborn Six," as Sports Illustrated has so aptly nicknamed the conferences that are surging ahead with a football season as the pandemic rages on.  Football is perhaps the worst sport to be playing during a public health crisis.  You can't social distance.  There's physical contact on every play.  That's why the Big Ten and Pac-12 deemed it too unsafe to play football this fall.  Yet in the South, where college football is religion, they have no such reservations.

Meanwhile, if you look at a map of the United States and you see where COVID cases are rising, it's all the Southern states!  The states where the virus is getting worst are the ones that think it's safe to play football.  Yet in the Northeast, Upper Midwest and West Coast, the places where the virus IS under control, nobody is planning on playing.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Consider this, too.  How many outbreaks have we heard about at college campuses over the past few weeks?  Pretty much all of those colleges are ones that haven't called off their football seasons yet.  There have even been how many outbreaks within football teams?  Yet that's not enough to deter these schools from forging ahead.

Part of their argument for playing is that they've been following of the NCAA protocols, which is true.  But even that hasn't been able to stop outbreaks within teams.  And, let's not forget, student-athletes, by definition, are students.  Which means they're going to intermingle with other students on campus.  Students who won't be subjected to the same rigorous standards or regular testing.  All it takes is one interaction with an infected person for the virus to spread and knock out the entire team.

Then there's the collateral damage of the other fall athletes.  They don't care about the soccer, volleyball and field hockey players or the cross country runners.  But the optics of only playing football this fall would be terrible (and most likely a Title IX violation).  So, student-athletes in those sports--who have nothing to play for with no NCAA Championships--are being asked to go out there and play whether they like it or not and whether it's safe or not just so the football season can be salvaged.

That brings me to the ridiculous petition started by Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields that had gained more than 200,000 signatures as of Sunday night.  Fields wants the Big Ten to immediately reinstate the 2020 football season and let players/teams make their own choice about whether or not they want to play.  It even has a catchy name: "We Want to Play."

Once again, no mention of the volleyball, soccer, field hockey and cross country student-athletes in the "We Want to Play" petition.  Because who cares about them?  We're talking about college football here.  There's nothing more important!

It wasn't an easy decision that the Big Ten and Pac-12 AD's, Presidents and Chancellors made.  They understand the financial blow to their athletic departments, not to mention the psychological blow to all involved by not playing football this fall.  But they had to think about more than the football players!  They had to think about those volleyball, soccer and field hockey players and cross country runners, too.

And just imagine what would happen if they'd allowed those volleyball and soccer and field hockey and cross country seasons to begin, only for somebody on one of those teams to get infected.  Or, even worse, they play a game with an infected person on the field (either on their own team or their opponent).  You might as well have the lawyers on standby!  Because the lawsuit would be filed before the bus even got back to campus!  And, frankly, it's not worth that financial risk.

The other Power 5 conference that has postponed all fall sports, including football, is the Pac-12.  Even before making that decision, the Pac-12 had its own football-related issue to deal with in the form of the #WeAreUnited movement, which started at Washington State, but quickly grew to include players throughout the entire conference.  They had a list of demands and threatened to boycott the season if they weren't met.  That boycott obviously won't happen now, but that's beside the point.

Some of the points that the Pac-12 players made are good ones, but some of their demands aren't just unreasonable, they're completely unrealistic.  For example, they want things such as six-year athletic scholarships, the ability to transfer once without having to sit out, and the ability to enter the draft, but return to school and remain eligible if they go undrafted.  These are NCAA rules.  The Pac-12 can't do anything about them unilaterally.  

Likewise, they want six years of medical insurance after they leave school.  Why should their university be on the hook for a "football injury" that suddenly pops up when they're 28...after having felt fine for the previous five years?  And if they get drafted, they're covered by the NFLPA, so why would any medical costs fall back on their school?

My absolute favorite, though, is their demand for 50 percent of conference revenues to be spread evenly among the student-athletes.  Guys, you aren't professional athletes!  You don't have a CBA!  Yes, the name, image, likeness legislation passed and will go into effect soon, giving them the ability to receive financial compensation without penalty for the first time.  But there's a big difference between that and revenue sharing.  

Again, revenue sharing is part of the agreement between professional leagues and their respective players unions.  College athletes are not professional athletes!  Not only that, but giving 50 percent of all Athletic Department revenues to student-athletes is beyond absurd.  For starters, most Athletic Departments operate at a deficit, so there aren't any revenues to go around to begin with.  Beyond that, though, Athletic Departments use whatever revenue they do get to benefit every program at the school, not just football!  Whether football players think that's fair or not is irrelevant.  The point remains...there wouldn't be any money left for things like facilities improvements, support staff, etc., if Athletic Departments were giving it directly to student-athletes, who would then be complaining about not having those things!

Nobody wanted to cancel/postpone the college football season, and the disappointment isn't limited to the players.  But it's also something that wasn't taken lightly.  It was done in the interest of public safety.  And once we get through this, college football will be there again.  If you look at the bigger picture, though, it's something that doesn't really seem particularly important right now.  The Big Ten and Pac-12 get that.  The Stubborn Six, unfortunately, don't.