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| Josiah Joseph, left, and the U of Calgary Dinos were 2019 U Sports champs. |
Even if you
do play, there is a chance your season might still not get completed and even
then you are playing a shortened campaign. You will also spend a lot of money
in the process.
These are
the realities that face athletes in U Sports in Canada and the NCAA in the
United States for the 2020-21 campaign due to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
pandemic. Even with that in mind, athletes on both sides of the border have
flocked back to many of their campuses to train for a campaign that has a big
risk of not happening.
Even for
teams whose sport or season has been cancelled for the 2020-21 campaign,
athletes have returned to many campuses to resume training.
For the top
level of NCAA football, the season is still a go, but many conferences have
cancelled play for the fall. The Big Ten, Pac-12, Mid-America Conference and
Mountain West are some of the conferences that have cancelled fall play.
However,
CBS was reporting Tuesday that United States President Donald Trump talked to
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren about reversing course and getting football
back on the field in that conference in fall.
The
conferences and independents that are already committed to playing are doing so
with various start times and various modified schedules. A pair of top level
NCAA football games are slated for Thursday and a number of NCAA football
contests are set to take the field on Saturday.
 |
| Willow Slobodzian missed her friends at Cornell. |
Before that
announcement was made, the NCAA had already said all fall championships in
Division II and Division III had been cancelled and would not be rescheduled
for spring.
In U Sports
in Canada, the Reseau du sport etudiant du Quebec is still pushing to get fall
sports back in action including football. There is a hope football will start
in the middle of September but work is still going on with provincial health
officials in Quebec to bring post-secondary sports back to action with
September 14 targeted as a potential decision day.
U Sports
has cancelled all its fall national championships. Atlantic University Sports
and Ontario University Athletics conferences have shut down all varsity sports
for the remainder of 2020.
Canada West
Conference has cancelled all fall sports with a couple of exceptions. The
Canada West Golf Championships are still slated for Oct. 2-4 to be hosted by
UBC Okanagan in Kelowna, B.C.
The Canada
West Swimming Championships were to be hosted by the University of Calgary in
November, but that event is being pushed back to a date to be determined in
early 2021.
The biggest
plus for the athletes that get back together is it does improve mental health,
and it even helps the mental health of the coaches and support staffs.
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| Colton Klassen enjoys seeing his Huskies teammate at Ignite Athletics. |
Many of
these groups haven’t been together for six months.
Clavet,
Sask., product Willow Slobodzian returned to train with the Cornell University
Big Red women’s hockey team in Ithaca, New York. The star defender, who is
eligible to play one more NCAA campaign, desperately wanted to see her friends
from her team again.
In
Saskatoon, members of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies football team that
live in town have been doing workouts at Ignite Athletics on the Gordie Howe
Sports Complex grounds since June 8. Those gatherings have boosted optimism and
positivity.
Huskies
star offensive utility player Colton Klassen said training at Ignite Athletics
has helped his well-being in a big way.
Despite the
plus of seeing all your teammate, there are a few other drawbacks that go along
with the potential of not playing.
The top
drawback is cost.
Even with
scholarships that get paid on both sides of the border, athletes and their
families will be dropping some cash to return to their respective institutions,
especially if they live out of town.
While the NCAA
Division I ranks are stereotypically viewed as the place that gives full
scholarships and takes care of all accommodations, that isn’t always the case.
There are a number of cases where athletes are only getting partial
scholarships and they and their families have to spend money on living
expenses.
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| Nelson Lokombo (#25) was the 2019 U Sports defensive player of the year. |
Most U
Sports institutions are conducting classes online unless you have to head to
campus for a lab, so the living expenses are a big factor. In Saskatchewan,
most buildings at the U of Saskatchewan and University of Regina are still
locked up.
On the
scholarships front, there are a number of partial scholarships in U Sports,
which means athletes and their families and paying on that front too.
For
Canadian athletes that head back to NCAA schools, they have another hoop. They
likely won’t return for Christmas break, because they will have to self-isolate
for 14 days upon returning from the United States to Canada.
The other
peril NCAA athletes have to dodge is the temptation to go to off-campus
parties. Many NCAA school brought back their entire student bodies, which meant
there were a lot of options to go out and party.
On Aug. 16,
The Daily Tar Heel, which is the student newspaper for the University of North
Carolina, wrote an editorial condemning the school for bringing students back
and went so far to use the word “clusterf*&%.” The editorial said there
were numerous reports of parties on the first weekend after the first full week
of school.
 |
| Summer Masikewich helped the Huskies win a U Sports title in March. |
There have
been constant reports of positive coronavirus tests within NCAA teams and one
of the themes sees these positive tests get traced back to parties.
Of the most
notable cases here came on Aug. 7, when the University of Louisville dismissed
three members of its men’s soccer team and suspended three others for hosting a
party that lead to the spread of COVID-19.
The Auburn
University Tigers were slated to resume practice today and were without 16
players due to COVID-19 concerns. Multiple practices were cancelled at Auburn
last week.
Parties
were not linked to any COVID-19 concerns in this case.
Things on
the NCAA landscape keep changing so much that ESPN is running a ticker on
developments, and the latest ticker can be found by clicking right here.
The
COVID-19 concerns aren’t going away in the United States any time soon.
As of
Tuesday night, Worldometer, which gives pretty accurate statistics, said the
United States has had over 6.2-million COVID-19 cases this year. That means 1.8
per cent of the United States population has had COVID-19 at one time this
year.
In Canada, U
Sports athletes will be the only groups of students that will get together on a
regular basis due to the focus of online classes. Getting COVID-19 at parties
is less of a concern in Canada as 0.3 per cent of the population has tested
positive for the virus this year according to Worldometer.
Still, try
and tell those in the 18 to 24 age group to not party seems like an impossible
task.
 |
| The U of Saskatchewan Huskies women’s basketball team on March 12. |
When the
dust settles, it all comes down to how the athletes and their families want to
spend their money and if they are comfortable with the unique factors that have
risen up in these current times.
If you can
navigate all those variables, the athletes are free to do as they please.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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