Commissioner of Pac-12 dealing with several crises
Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott believes most athletes in the conference are safer on campus than at home and is guardedly optimistic football games will be played with fans in attendance this fall.
Scott discussed those issues and others related to resuming Pac-12 sports amidst the coronavirus pandemic, social unrest and paying athletes for name, image and likeness in an interview this week with azcentral sports.
Eight Pac-12 athletic departments including those at the Arizona schools began allowing phased voluntary workouts on campus this week. UCLA is scheduled to join that group next week with openings still to be determined for the three other California schools.
“Just because we all might not be able to bring student-athletes on a voluntary basis for workouts June 15 doesn’t mean those that can shouldn’t be able to start,” Scott said. “There’s a sense that this week most of our schools would be in a position that they could either have student-athletes come back or would be close to it. But there’s been a nice spirit of cooperation and collaboration.”
The Pac-12 footprint covers six states, stretching 1,400 miles from Tucson to Pullman, Washington. All
those states also have major professional sports teams that are restarting or beginning postponed seasons.
“That in a way has also paved the way for us a little bit and made it a little bit easier,” Scott said. “All of our states have accepted that sports are coming back assuming there is appropriate protocols and no big changes in how the virus is developing.”
Scott, 55, has been the Pac-12 commissioner since 2009, a period that includes the conference expanding from 10 teams. The road, especially from a financial standpoint relative to other Power 5 conferences, has been rocky with much at stake for the Pac-12 in its next media rights deals starting after the 2023-24 school year.
Now, though, the more immediate pressing economic issue surrounds playing football this year to keep $100million annual revenue athletic departments solvent after a major loss of revenue from cancellation of the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.
“It’s a challenging time for our student-athletes, campuses and certainly the conference office,” Scott said. “We’re dealing with a health crisis, economic crisis and racial crisis all at the same time. We’re just trying to support and coordinator and navigate our way through this as best possible with our campuses.”
The Pac-12 created a COVID advisory board, adding infectious disease specialists to an existing committee responsible for athlete health and well being initiatives. That group, Scott said, has given Pac-12 schools “state of the art guidance” on safety procedues for athletes returning to campus and beginning workouts.
“It’s great having the combination of the practitioners like trainers that work with our student-athletes, understand the training room environment, understand what a weight room looks like and the flows of the student-athletes that meets the coaches on the one hand,” Scott said.
“The infectious disease experts don’t necessarily understand the sport environment but understand the virus and understand testing. It’s that combination that’s made their work particularly valuable.”
When Pac-12 athletes return to campus, they are tested for COVID-19 and for antibodies to determine if someone was previously infected and has recovered.
The antibody test, Scott said, is important because having overcome COVID “might give you some measure of immunity for some time. There’s still some question marks about for how long and the benefit of it.
“More importantly for our medical experts is there’s additional medical screening they want to do for any student-athlete that contracts the virus around possible impact on lungs and lung capacity, heart. There’s still so much that’s unknown about the virus, but there has been some research that there could be lung damage, heart risk and the doctors want to monitor for that.”
Here are more of Scott’s comments on COVID and other matters:
On athletes being safer on campus than at home
“Now that they’ve started opening gyms in local communities, our medical experts feel that it would be safer to be in the weight room let’s say at ASU than it would be at the local 24 Hour Fitness or Gold’s Gym in Tempe or somewhere else around the country.
“There’s a wide range of conditions for student-athletes at home and access whether it’s nutrition, training. For most student-athletes, the facilities they’ll be able to work out in are going to have the hygiene, sanitation, social distancing protections. They’re going to have the oversight of strength and conditioning coaches and the supervision that they can’t get at home. Thirdly, they’re going to have access to testing and fourth if they have the virus or have been exposed to the virus, they have world-class medical facilities at our schools.”
On COVID pledge some athletes including those at Ohio State are required to sign waiving the university of responsibility for a positive test
“We have not had advanced discussions about anything conferencewide. At the moment, it’s a campus discussion (ASU is not asking athletes to sign a waiver/pledge).
“I haven’t looked at the specifics in these pledges yet. I’m very much in favor of the importance of education and a culture shift. As long as there is so much that’s unknown about the disease and we have asymptomatic transmission of the disease as infectious as it is, it’s critical that individuals understand their social responsibility and their responsibility to their team. Whether it’s in the form of a pledge or just education and communication, we don’t have a formal position on. But I really applaud the efforts to have staff and student-athletes understand their responsibility as an individual to their team and to their community.”
On fan attendance at Pac-12 football games
“I’m very cautious about predicting or talking about what we think it should like in September. We’re learning so much with every week that goes by especially as restrictions get eased in communities. People start going to restaurants, start going to gyms, start going to movie theaters, we’re going to learn a lot about transmission and the risk and that will inform public policy about a gathering, inside vs. outside and otherwise.
“I would like to think, but this is subject to seeing what happens, that in big outdoor stadium there will be some number of fans socially distanced with other precautions that can watch a football game in an outdoor stadium. But I do expect that to be a local decision, by state, maybe by county about what’s possible. But these are big outdoor stadiums that wouldn’t be hard to space fans. I’d like to think we’re going to be able to have a gradual phased-in approach at most of our stadiums across the country. That might start small then ramp up as things progress if things are going well.”
On Black Lives Matter protests resulting from incidents of police brutality
“All of our campuses and athletic departments in particular are trying to encourage and support these important conversations but beyond that to talk about what actions can studentathletes take, can their athletic departments take, can the conference take to try to make a positive difference toward more social justice and equality.
“We’ve had a very clear position that we support student-athletes using their platform and using their voice and to try to make a positive difference in the world. In terms of specifics, I’ve already started conversations with our campuses, coaching groups, student-athletes about what type of statement to promote equality and the fight against hate and racism, what type of actions and how it can be done in a way that shows unity amongst all student-athletes.”
On latest pay, image, likeness lawsuit brought by two Pac-12 athletes
“We’re certainly hopeful that Congress is able to pass a bill this year so that there can be national rules around NIL and give the appropriate safe harbor and protection for the NCAA conferences and schools to have rules that define how NIL should work in a way that preserves what the public loves about college sports and doesn’t turn it into professional sports.
“The recent lawsuit is a perfect example of why we need Congress to be involved because if it’s left to state legislation and lawyers and the courts to decide, it’s going to be very difficult if not impossible for this not to turn into pro sports overnight with no rules around student-athlete compensation. Maybe that’s what some people want. I can see why lawyers that are putting forward these lawsuits might want that, but it’s also pretty clear to me that most fans don’t want college sports to turn into pro sports.”