On June 4th, Penn announced that the ACT and SAT will not be required for the 2020-2021 admissions cycle. This decision came after the spread of the coronavirus pandemic forced the College Board and ACT to postpone many of their tests. This means that the class of 2025, which graduates high school in the spring of 2021, is not required to submit test scores.
Penn’s announcement came with an asterisk: student-athletes must still take a test in accordance with Ivy League recruitment requirements.
One month after the DP story appeared the Ivy League has called an audible if Jon Rothestein of the CBS Sports Network got it right:
Sources: Ivy League Presidents have suspended the standardized test requirement for prospective student-athletes during the 20-21 application cycle because of ongoing testing issues due to COVID-19.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 13, 2020
Green Alert Take: Never forget, the virus makes the rules.
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A Dartmouth administrator is quoted in a story under the headline, What will it take to pull off HS sports this fall in N.J.? (LINK):
As athletes turn to administrators and other leaders for answers, the reality is that right now, they don't exist.
"As somebody that's a scientist and understands the scientific method, I'm kind of empathetic to the fact that we're making the best decisions that we possibly can in the moments that we're making them with the information at hand," said Stephen Gonzalez, assistant athletic director at Dartmouth College for leadership and mental performance.
"When you're in a leadership position, you can be wrong and human. I think this is a really interesting time too for a lot of coaches and parents because they're used to always having the answers and a lot of them won't."
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A little farther south, North Carolina high schools will not play football this fall but instead start their seasons in February and be limited to seven games. (LINK)
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Noting that the Big South has become the 10th of the 13 FCS conferences to make the decision not to play football this fall, STATS has a story under the headline How the FCS can play in the spring. The story doesn't really offer as much in the way of what the FCS can do as it does what must happen nationally. From the story (LINK):
"Obviously, we have to get control of this virus in this country," Big Sky commissioner Tom Wistrcill said. "We have to make sure we can have contact sports in a safe way. I think a lot will be determined by what happens this fall on campuses. Once all the students come back to campus, how can we manage the spread of the virus at each of our locations?"
And . . .
For the plans to come to fruition, college football likely needs to be in a different spot five months from now, perhaps with the pandemic under control when teams would be starting practices or be getting ready to do that.
And this warning . . .
Having sports up and running in the spring semester would mean fall teams getting started in the heart of winter, which will be particularly challenging in northern states, and having them collide on campuses for multiple months with winter and spring sports. That will put stress on facilities and staff.
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The idea of masks under helmets has been suggested but at Tulane, which gave it a shot, the masks are coming off during practice. Coach Willie Fait: "Our players felt like their heads were in an oven." (LINK)
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From the NCAA (LINK):
The NCAA has established a phone number and email to allow college athletes, parents or others to report potential return-to-sport concerns.
Green Alert Take: Get ready for a lot of THIS.
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Los Angeles Times sportswriter Bill Plaschke, who thought he was so careful that he'd be among the last candidates to be sickened by COVID-19, was wrong. He writes of his battle with the virus (LINK):
My temperature hovered in the upper reaches of 102. It felt like my head was on fire. One night I sweated through five shirts. I shook so much from the chills I thought I chipped a tooth. My chest felt like LeBron James was sitting on it. My fatigue made it feel as if I was dressed in the chains of Jacob Marley’s ghost. I coughed so hard it felt like I broke a rib.
I would fall asleep in a chair and wake up terrified from a hallucinatory dream where I was chased through a playground by old women with giant heads. During phone calls I would get confused and just stop talking. I would begin crying for no reason. I lost my sense of taste, smell, and five pounds in the first four days.
Green Alert Take: Anyone clamoring to be in the stands at a football or basketball game before the pandemic is controlled would do well to read Plaschke's column.
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Ricky Rahne, a record-setting quarterback at Cornell and now head coach at Old Dominion, has written a heartfelt letter about his feelings for football and his chosen profession in this era of COVID-19. Click the graphic to make it readable. (You may have to click again when the Rahne tweet comes up but it's worth it. And be sure to click the arrows to advance pages.)
After some reflection... pic.twitter.com/fjFO7f9nBZ
— Ricky Rahne (@RickyRahne) August 12, 2020
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EXTRA POINT
When we were first married Mrs. BGA and I lived in Vermont. We're back all these years later and trying to be good residents of the Green Mountain State. To that end, we are playing by some new rules this summer. From the Fast Company website (LINK):
Vermonters can no longer simply toss their food into trash cans. Under a new law that went into effect at the start of (July), residents are now required to compost any unfinished food—including inedible scraps like peels, egg shells, and pits—in their yard or through a professional compost facility. While other states have taken steps to curb food waste, particularly at the business level, Vermont is the first to implement a statewide ban on food waste that also affects individuals.
And why has Vermont mandated composting? More from the story:
Every five years, Vermont officials dig through the state’s trash to see what residents are tossing, and they’ve consistently found that 20% is food waste. Food waste has also been shown to be a significant source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide when it comes to warming the Earth.
We had a large rotating barrel for composting when we lived on the shoulder of Moose Mountain in rural Hanover. Trust me, it got very heavy and pretty hard to spin as it filled up. That said, on more than one occasion it was dragged into woods or tipped over by bears.
Last month we bought a new composting barrel to use here in Vermont. This one rests on its side and is rolled on a little stand or across the ground to mix up the black gold developing inside. Like the other one, it is getting heavier all the time, and rolling it is going to become more difficult.
Where are bears when you need them?
