By now most of what is being written about the Ivy League canceling the fall sports season is simply repackaging what's already been written and debated for the past few weeks. Several stories, however, include thoughts from those directly impacted by the decision.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a piece with comments from brothers John Paul and Michael Flores, Dartmouth offensive linemen. From the story (LINK):
They expected the news that the Ivy League delivered on Wednesday when it announced that all fall sports are canceled. This covers football, soccer, field hockey, cross country and volleyball.
What they did not expect was the league saying, in a statement, “A decision on the remaining winter and spring sports competition calendar, and on whether fall sport competition would be feasible in the spring, will be determined at a later date.”
This means football moving to the spring is not a guarantee. It is now relegated as merely a hope.
And . . .
“I did not disagree with their decision, but the part I disagreed with was how they left people in the cold in that they won’t revisit this until January 1,” John Paul Flores said in a phone interview on Wednesday night. “It was the decision to just push it down the road another five months that shocked me.”
And . . .
“I was shocked,” Michael Flores said. “I was not too happy, especially for the fifth year [seniors] who had to say their goodbyes to the team.”
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The Times-Picayune site spoke with incoming Dartmouth freshman receiver Jarmone Sutherland, considered one of the jewels of the recruiting class. He told the paper (LINK):
"It was disappointing for sure. I'm a competitor. So I want to play just as bad as everyone else. But I'm just a freshman. I feel bad for the older guys who don't have as much time. Being a freshman, even if we don't have a spring season, this is basically like a redshirt year and I keep all four years of eligibility."
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Sutherland's approach is in lockstep with Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens' thinking. Speaking from Florida, where he's been camped out since the pandemic took hold, he told the Valley News (LINK):
“As a football coach, it’s hard to take, and as a player, it’s the last thing you want to hear,. We went through this with spring student-athletes and saw how difficult it was. But life moves on.
“One thing is the Ivies and NCAA will consider the extra year of eligibility; last spring, that wasn’t the case. Being the optimist, I’m, ‘OK, I have an opportunity to train these guys through the course of a year. Spring season is still in question.’ ... I’ll focus on that.”
And . . .
“It’s hard being the first one, but I realized and felt like this all along: This thing didn’t look good. Safety has to be the driving force and the decision-making tool.”
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Robin Harris, executive director of the Ivy League, had this to say to ESPN (LINK):
"The campus policies make it impractical for competition to occur, at least through the end of the fall semester. That's why today we're announcing. Eight campuses have announced their policies for the fall over the past two weeks. When we realized and the presidents realized based on these campus policies that we couldn't have competition, we wanted to make sure the student-athletes were aware of the outcome.
"It's certainly the right decision for the Ivy League, but it's difficult."
Green Alert Take: It was clear once Dartmouth announced it was bringing back just half of its student body that it would be all but impossible for the Big Green to have fall sports this year. When Harvard said only 40 percent of its students would be on campus and Princeton 50 percent it was a fait accompli that there would be no Ivy League athletics this fall. Still, it's curious that Harris would speak to the inability to field teams this fall rather than the inadvisability of doing so. Was that intentional? Perhaps it's parsing words but in doing so she gave schools and conferences that will have their entire student bodies back cover for playing this fall.
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To that end, STATS has a story under the headline, Will no fall sports in Ivy League be a trendsetter across Division I? (LINK) SEC
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And then there's this, with Paul Finebaum calling the Ivy decision, "A dreadful indicator for college football," and saying it "sent a tsunami across the country from a college football standpoint."
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Back to parsing words, this from CBS story (LINK) about the Ivy League decision annoys me:
There are also financial considerations to take into account for the Ivy League. The conference loses more money on football than any other sport.
Green Alert Take: Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Ivy League doesn't lose money on football any more than it loses money on theater productions or the library or bringing speakers to campus. It spends money on football.
Also from the story, regarding the possibility of moving the fall sports season to the spring:
"Football hasn't been decided yet if it would be moved to the spring, but logistically, I don't know how that would work," an Ivy League source told CBS Sports' Matt Norlander. "... You can't move all the sports to the spring; the logistics don't work. The soccer field is the lacrosse field. The scheduling would be a nightmare."
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Ivy League opponents who have had games canceled:
Bucknell 3
Holy Cross 3
Georgetown 2
Lafayette 2
Lehigh 2
Marist 2
Army 1
Bryant 1
Central Connecticut 1
Colgate 1
New Haven 1
Rhode Island 1
Richmond 1
Sacred Heart 1
Towson 1
VMI 1
Army and VMI are reportedly looking at playing each other to make up for lost games against Princeton.
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EXTRA POINT
This will be the first time since 1987 that I won't be in a football press box in the fall. Can someone remind me what people do on Saturdays in the fall, and please don't say rake leaves.
