What a Time to be Alive

 What a time to be alive.

When the basketball tournament was cancelled, I remember thinking, "this has to be resolved by the time football starts."  But, knowing what pandemics are like, you had to wonder.  And it has come true.

I applaud the MAC for what they did.  I also give them credit for having the courage to be first.  That was the position no one wanted to be in, but it had to be someone.

This is 100% the right thing to do.  You don't have to go any farther than Andrew Clair's tweet, where he noted that it wasn't safe for people to sit and watch the games but it was OK for the players to play and "smash heads."

It laid the truth bare.  You can't justify that.

No doubt, football is an economic engine and the ramifications are ugly.  But, if you have created a world where you have to send college students into situations of uncertain safety to meet the budget, you've created  situation headed for a reckoning and it might as well be now.

I always believed our people would do the right thing.  I love the MAC because I think we're much closer to the ideal of the student athlete.  We're not pure, but it's much more like the way things are supposed to be.  I never believed we would do this to our athletes and we didn't.  It was reasonable to make the decision as late as possible, but when the time came they made the call.

From what I read online, NIU was the leader, possibly to the point where they were preferred to go it alone, or not go it alone, as it were.

I mentioned above the phrase "uncertain safety."  I understand that many people reading this think that the whole virus reaction is hype.  I don't see it that way, but we can't get stuck on it.  There are plenty of contradictions to how this situation as evolved and it just points out how little we know.  If the risk was known, we could make a decision.  There are known risks to playing football.  These are unknown risks and we didn't send our students into it and I believe we did the right thing.

The implications of this are hard to even fathom.  Less so if we play in the spring, but that's not certain either.  What happens to eligibility?  What happens to scholarship limits?  How do we pay the coaching and support staff?  Do athletes transfer?  And...let's remember that this impacts other sports, too, some of which had their seasons outright cancelled.

They just spin and spin, but we listened to experts and showed our integrity.

As a fan, I'm so disappointed.  I can't believe I won't be sitting up there in my seats with my friends and watching my team play...the first fall since 1971 when BG football had a part of my Fall.  It's just so disappointing.  But those players shouldn't have to take unknown risks just for my amusement.  I'll be fine, my life has many blessings.  Watching sports is a privilege and I'll be there whenever we are back.