Decision stands, but was formal vote taken?

Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour spent a little over an hour speaking to reporters on a Zoom call Monday that provided a mix of clarity and confusion.

After the Big Ten canceled its fall season, Barbour plainly said the school never considered playing a non-conference football season.

She cited legal and moral obligations to the conference as reasons not to play once the league decided.

“It was clear to me from the beginning that was not part of the execution of our rights,” Barbour said via Zoom. “We are proud members of the Big Ten.”

While Barbour answered a lot of questions Monday, one of her responses undoubtedly will

lead to a lot of questions.

A reporter asked Barbour if Penn State president Dr. Eric Barron cast an actual vote during a reported session among conference chancellors and presidents when the decision not to play this fall was made.

“It’s unclear whether there was ever a vote or not,” Barbour said.

“Nobody has ever told me there was.”

And here’s the kicker: “I don’t know whether there was a vote by the chancellors and presidents,” she said.

Barbour’s uncertainty comes after Minnesota president Joan Gabel told reporters: “We didn’t vote, per se. It was a deliberative process.”

Barbour acknowledged that she had heard the concerns raised in a letter from the Penn State football parents association seeking answers on why there won’t be a season. Barbour was unequivocal when asked if those concerns from the 80-plus parents who signed the letter caused the school to reevaluate playing this fall.

“The presidents and chancellors made their decision based on science, based on information from medical experts and based on concerns about uncertainty in several different categories,” Barbour said.

“I don’t see that changing, but I also appreciate the passion of our parents and our student-athletes, and I appreciate both where their hearts and their heads are.”

Barbour also cleared up any doubt about her desire to play before the season got canceled last week.

“I want to play. Our board wants to play, and you’re fully aware that our coaches and student-athletes and their families want to play,” Barbour said.

“But it’s never been about playing at all costs or under any circumstances.

“We all want to play, and we have turned our attention to what that next opportunity might be to play for our fall sports, and we’re working to make sure that we do everything we can to improve the circumstances under which we might play.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise that an athletic director at a big school would want to play. Nor would it be shocking that coaches want to coach and athletes want to hit the field. But what would make the university president take such a risk?

“Penn State’s collective efforts have been the fight for a plan, have been the fight for playing sports this year,” Barbour said. “Frankly, it’s been to fight for and plan for having students on campus this fall. Dr. Barron has fought. Our board has fought. Every one of our coaches has fought, and I have fought.”

Barbour said that she speaks to Barron regularly and was at least confident that Barron wanted to play.

“It is clear to me that Penn State and Eric Barron, both on our campus and as he took his thoughts to the Big Ten and the various conversations that they had, explored every option to play,” Barbour said. We explored every option that would have been acceptable from a health and safety standpoint.

“To say that Dr. Barron fought for our student-athletes’ ability to play this fall, I think that would be a correct assumption.”

Barbour returned to a place of clarity when asked if spring football can work.

“I absolutely see it being viable. Obviously, it’s going to depend on where the virus is at the time,” Barbour said.

“All of our sports are going to depend on that, but being who we are as athletic directors, we turned our attention to that pretty quickly. Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday, and along with our coaches, along with some of our sports science people, our sports medicine folks, we are far down the road on concepts.

“Obviously, a lot to be done in terms of dotting I’s and crossing T’s, but we’ve put something together that I think is very compelling and our student-athletes and our fans and our communities will be pretty interested in.”

As she was for the majority of the Zoom conference, Barbour was also concise in explaining why waiting a little longer before ultimately canceling the fall season wasn’t a great idea.

“Simply as I can put it, in the end, there was too much uncertainty for them to believe it could be done safely,” Barbour said. “The long-term impacts are something we can’t know. We can’t know right now, and frankly, we can’t know in two or three weeks, either.”

Barbour had nearly all the answers, except for one of the more critical questions for fans and players: How was the choice made?

“I know that every chancellor and president moved forward and told their athletic directors that that was the decision,” Barbour said.