Unique time for sports thanks to COVID-19
When the sporting world came to a screeching halt over a two-day period last Wednesday and Thursday, sports fans were hit with a dose of reality that we have never seen before.
While sporting events were canceled for a short time after the attacks on 9/11, games picked up the next week.
But with the current situation with the COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus, no one knows when sports will pick up again.
In the college sports world, it seems that every time someone has a question about how things will go moving forward, the question is answered with several more questions.
One of the big topics to come out of games being postponed is what will happen with the eligibility of collegiate athletes, most notably spring sport seniors who are in their last year of admissibility.
The NCAA announced that their will be no championships for 2020 winter or spring sports, and the Atlantic Coast Conference canceled the remainder of its sports seasons for this semester.
More and more college football programs have canceled their spring games, with Penn State and Michigan being two of the most recent.
When will all of this end?
Again, another question that could be answered with more questions.
Let蘑菇视频 get back to the idea of spring sport seniors getting an extra year of eligibility.
Many big-time coaches have mentioned this idea, and it makes sense.
If a spring sport student-athlete is in his or her final season of eligibility and wants to return next year, that should be offered to them.
But again, questions arise.
First off, the majority of the current seniors who would fall under this potential rule change will not be going pro in their respective sports.
Many of them have put in their four years, or five if they were granted a redshirt, and are about to graduate and head into the real world. They may mentally be ready to move on into their athletic retirement and prepare for the next phase of their lives.
Or maybe they already have a graduate program lined up at another university.
But what about the student-athletes who might have another semester to go to reach graduation or are planning on staying at the same school to begin their master蘑菇视频 degree?
These are the student-athletes that could benefit from the NCAA doing the right thing and offering the extra year.
When looking at this topic, let蘑菇视频 not just look at the seniors.
What about the freshmen, sophomores and juniors?
Even though they did not lose their last season of eligibility, will they all be offered a redshirt to get an extra season? And what if they already used a redshirt? Will they be given an extra season?
And if seniors are offered another season of eligibility, what does this do for scholarships as there are only so many to go around and incoming freshmen have already signed letters of intent.
Again, so many questions with answers that offer more questions.
Another topic brought up has been the seniors of the winter sports who lost the chance to compete for an NCAA championship, and in some instances, conference crowns.
Should they be given another season?
While I support spring student-athletes getting another year of eligibility, I am not for the winter athletes gaining another.
The spring sports were only a quarter of the way into their respective seasons, at most, whereas the winter sports team were down to a quarter of their games remaining, at most.
Let蘑菇视频 say a basketball player lost three conference tournament games and his or her team would have reached the NCAA men蘑菇视频 basketball championship game. That is six more games.
So the seniors would have missed out on nine games after playing 31 already.
That is less than a quarter of potential games missed.
But if a player蘑菇视频 team lost in the first round of the conference tournament and again in the first round of the NCAA tournament, that means he or she would have only missed two out of 33 games.
We will never know the exact number of missed games, but it is not worth giving them a whole extra season in my book.
Regardless of where anyone stands on this topic and others, this truly is unprecedented times in sports.
Only time will tell how things will work out.
Email questions/comments to powerhousehughes@gmail.com or tweet them to @BillHughes_III.