Ivy League cancels competition through the fall semester
For at least one major college conference, there will be no sports for the rest of 2020.
The Ivy League announced Wednesday that sports competition has been canceled through the fall semester.
Affected schools include Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Penn and Cornell.
“As a leadership group, we have a responsibility to make decisions that are in the best interest of the students who attend our institutions, as well as the faculty and staff who work at our schools,” the Ivy League Council of Presidents said in a statement. “These decisions are extremely difficult, particularly when they impact meaningful student-athlete experiences that so many value and cherish.
“With the information available to us today regarding the continued spread of the virus, we simply do not believe we can create and maintain an environment for intercollegiate athletic competition that meets our requirements for safety and acceptable levels of risk, consistent with the policies that each of our schools is adopting as part of its reopening plans this fall.”
The league added, “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.”
Since basketball, for example, normally starts in November, at best that sport would hold a shortened season beginning in January.
As fall teams await word on the spring, the league will still allow teams to hold hold practices and other training activities, “provided they are structured in accordance with each institution’s procedures and applicable state regulations.”
“The Ivy League will also issue guidelines on a phased approach to conditioning and practice activities to allow for interaction among student-athletes and coaches that will begin with limited individual and small group workouts and build to small group practice sessions, if public health conditions permit,” the league said.
The Ivy League’s decision could be the domino for other Division I conferences to follow suit given that the league was also the first to cancel conference basketball tournaments when the coronavirus struck in March. It shortly thereafter canceled spring sports as well.
However, any decision for the Football Bowl Subdivision — the top level of college football — will be more complicated given the financial ramifications.
TCNJ became the first New Jersey
college to cancel its fall sports slate at the end of June.
The Ivy League said that student-athletes will not use a season of eligibility in the fall, regardless of whether they enroll.
“Students who wish to pursue competition during a fifth-year will need to work with their institutions in accordance with campus policy to determine their options beyond their current anticipated graduation date,” the league said.
The league previously voted against granting a fifth year of eligibility to student-athletes whose spring seasons were canceled, although some schools allowed those athletes to withdraw and return to school for the 2020-21 academic year in order to preserve an extra year of eligibility.