Bowie State, CIAA suspend fall sports
Bowie State fall sports became the latest victim to coronavirus cancellations on Thursday.
The Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association board of directors voted to suspend play of all member NCAA sports during the fall of 2020 due to safety concerns amid the ongoing pandemic. It’s a decision that impacts football, volleyball and men’s and women’s cross-country.
The move puts the CIAA in the same position as several athletic conferences that have decided to suspend or postpone fall seasons recently, including the Ivy League. The Big Ten on Thursday announced it would play a conference-only schedule this fall.
CIAA officials cited continuing spikes in coronavirus cases in regions where member institutions are located, as well as the uncertainty in those areas on whether campuses will reopen for students this fall. The CIAA sponsors 13 schools across five states: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
“As a conference that runs 14 championships, this makes it very difficult to have to continue to make decisions based on something we don’t have any control of, and that’s COVID-19,” CIAA commissioner Jacqie McWilliams said in a virtual press conference Friday afternoon. “What I am certain of is that the challenges we’ve faced in this conference for years, we’ve always found opportunities to do better, be better and do what’s in the best interest of our conference, our member institutions and most importantly, our student-athletes.”
The CIAA will explore the option of playing fall sports in the spring but asserted there is no timetable available for that decision.
“Coronavirus is making the decisions for all of this right now,” said Clyde Doughty, Bowie State vice president of Intercollegiate Athletics & Recreation and President of CIAA Athletic Directors Association. “We’re following the lead of the science and the data and we have plans in place for schedule in the spring for football, should we be able to play. If that comes to fruition, we should be able to play at least our conference games in the spring. We are making plans to do so if things get better medically.”
Two months ago, the conference’s leaders felt optimistic the fall season would begin in August. As coronavirus continued to worsen through the summer, safety concerns overwhelmed a desire for a return to play.
CIAA officials had intended to suspend all fall sports if just one member school had been unable to hold contests due to coronavirus.
“That’s how strongly we felt we had to stick together like peanut butter, to move forward,” Doughty said.
The last time the CIAA missed holding its football championship was just after World War II, McWilliams said.
The commissioner anticipates return to play guidelines for college sports surfacing in the next few weeks.
Many conferences, especially in Division I, fret the impact losing football revenue will have on the remainder of the athletic department should they lose their seasons. But schools like Bowie State operate differently.
Football’s funding stays within football, just as in cross-country or volleyball. The athletic department’s money is mostly generated through student fees with some assistance from ticket sales.
“It’s nowhere close to what you would think about from a big-time school that supports the entire athletic department. We’re not in that boat with them, we’re not rowing with them down that river,” Doughty said.
Doughty said that this time without competitions will be used to figure out how to reallocate funds typically spent during the fall, as well as budgets already affected by coronavirus this year.
A loss of fall ticket sales will still affect Bowie State’s budget, but Doughty expressed the CIAA will aim to be efficient with the remaining funds and to explore other options for revenue, such as sponsors and the CIAA Network.
“Those funds will be there to support the programs in the spring. We’re just flipping things,” Doughty said.
The CIAA will honor all athletic scholarships for affected student-athletes, even for two-sport athletes who are involved in both spring and fall sports.
Regardless, several Anne Arundel athletes will lose their fall seasons.
Two members of the Bowie State volleyball team include rising freshmen Jacey Lewis, who made the IAAM first team All-Conference four years at Archbishop Spalding, and Abrielle Scrivener, who helped Arundel capture Its first state title in 2019 and earned Capital Gazette first team All-County honors.
Two Northeast alumni, Demetrius Jones and Abigail Hunt, are members of the Bowie State men’s and women’s cross-country teams, respectively.
Arundel graduates Shaun-Trent Okoye and Marvin Flythe and former Meade standouts Uvel Paul, Jr. and Darius Wilson are also on the roster.
For Okoye, the conference postponement may actually serve as a personal blessing. The wideout tore his labrum in his shoulder during Arundel’s playoff victory over South River. He just had surgery this past Monday.
“When I saw the season was suspended, I didn’t really take it that hard because I was already pretty much out for the season. I looked at it like a minor setback,” Okoye said. “If the season is suspended to spring, that’s an opportunity for me to still have a chance to play my first season.”
The Bowie State football team had been seeking to ride a prosperous 2019 season in which the Bulldogs posted a perfect 10-0 regular season record, ranked No. 13 in the nation among Division II schools and the only unbeaten historically Black college or university program in the country.
Upon claiming its second CIAA Northern Division title in two years, Bowie State put up a dominating performance in the CIAA Championship, beating Fayetteville State 23-7 to claim its second consecutive crown.
Three Bulldogs earned CIAA Player of the Year awards — quarterback Ja’rome Johnson (Offensive Player of the Year), defensive back Demetri Morsell (Defensive Player of the Year) and defensive lineman Jonathan Ross (Defensive Rookie of the Year), while head coach Damon Wilson was voted CIAA Coach of the Year. Bowie State led the conference with 10 All-CIAA selections.