HEARTBROKEN
Athletes face cancellations
Imagine spending the majority of a decade striving for a single athletic achievement, and less than 24 hours before that moment arrives, your dream evaporates into thin air.
That is the current bitter reality for thousands of NCAA athletes whose winter championships or entire springs seasons have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Think about all the upperclassmen, like Colorado State distance runner Eric Hamer, who qualified for the NCAA indoor championships for the first time this season as a fifth-year Rams senior.
Hamer, seeded 14th in the 5,000-meter final, was in Albuquerque, N.M, on Thursday morning preparing for Friday night’s race as the NCAA shifted from no fans allowed, to postponement, to complete cancellation.
“I’ll take a nap and then realize it’s not a dream,” Hamer said. “It’s a constant unraveling realization and it’s sitting in different ways. … It took me five years to get here — absolutely — of messing up a lot, overcoming injury and just growing as a person. The moment was not lost on anyone. “The rug was yanked out from all of us.” On Friday afternoon, as the spread of COVID-19 shuttered the sports world, the NCAA enacted an immediate ban on inperson recruiting until April 15.
It also delivered some positive news, in stating that “eligibility relief is appropriate for all Division I student-athletes who participated in spring sports.” Those sports include baseball, women’s beach volleyball, golf, lacrosse, outdoor track, women’s rowing, softball, tennis, men’s volleyball and women’s water polo.
Hamer, also an accomplished outdoor track athlete, told The Denver Post late Friday that the NCAA had contacted CSU coaches with preliminary next steps for extending eligibility, but many details still needed to be “ironed out.” But it appears the process of adding one spring sports season per athlete will not be simple or universally applied — especially with many on partial scholarships.
“I think it’s the right call, but whether or not I take (the eligibility), I probably won’t,” Hamer said. “To be a student and train at this level is not something you do lightly and I would need to get into grad school. My scholarship has been promised to another up-and-coming runner that’s going to be coming into CSU. I think a lot of people are actually going to just accept that it’s time to move on.”
The CU skiing team was in fifth place at the NCAA championships in Bozeman, Mont., when the NCAA canceled the event. Buffs coach Richard Rokos said he was a strong proponent of his athletes having an avenue to additional eligibility as a result.
“We have had back-and-forth contact with our compliance (office) and I was hoping something like this would be on the table for discussion,” Rokos said. “Even as the season is technically-speaking over, the championship is the highlight. If the NCAA will decide to extend the eligibility of athletes based on this situation, I think it’s a very fair decision.