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BULLETIN: July 7, 2020 — The Centennial Conference has upset the apple cart
Five days ago, Swarthmore College made the announcement that it would not be participating in intercollegiate athletics this fall owing to the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic.
This afternoon, the rest of the Centennial Conference followed suit.
The Division III conference has 11 members, including a pair of schools which have a history in Division I athletics. Ursinus maintained a Division I presence in field hockey until the early 2000s, and Johns Hopkins has had Division I women’s lacrosse since the turn of the millenium.
There are other ramifications of the postponement of intercollegiate athletics amongst the schools in the conference. Hopkins, Franklin & Marshall, and Gettysburg are contenders next spring in women’s lacrosse, and it would appear that none of the teams will be able to develop through fall ball.
In addition, there’s a rumored clause in the founding documents of Haverford College that the school has to maintain a cricket team in order to retain the land on which the institution is built, a proviso put in by the landscape architect who built the campus, William Carvill. Carvill introduced the game to the Haverford student body in 1834.
I don’t expect the lack of a fall season to affect Haverford’s status as a college, given the fact that the lack of a cricket club could be covered by the ancient legal principles that define an Act of God. But stranger things have happened in the world of college athletics over the last century.
July 7, 2020 — Will the Ivy League upset the NCAA apple cart?
Various governing bodies of sport have been floating ideas about how and when sports are to start within their member institutions. A number of governing bodies of scholastic sport, including those of Ohio, Michigan, and New York, have been floating the idea of moving the upcoming fall sports out of their traditional time periods and either exchanging them with spring sports or playing an overloaded schedule in the spring of 2021.
Well, according to multiple reports received by The Athletic, a prominent body in the collegiate ranks is looking to move all of its fall sports to the spring. That body is the Ivy League.
Yes, it’s only eight schools, their football teams do not play in the postseason, and it’s rare when an Ivy school wins an NCAA Division I title. However, what the Ivy League may lack in competitiveness is more than made up for in leadership and in rational decisionmaking, as well as the number of presidents, judges, lawmakers, and public health officials who are alumni/ae.
Mind you, I’m not sure that tomorrow’s anticipated move by the Ivy League will prompt every one of the 1250 or so NCAA member institutions to do the same? However, if you’re a university of any size, you’ve been watching what has been going on elsewhere.
Of course, a number of individual universities (such as Bowdoin, Williams, Mount Holyoke, Rensselaer, and Swarthmore) have already cancelled intercollegiate sports. I have a feeling that a number of other league members — or even their conferences — will be closing up shop this fall.
I also think schools and governing bodies have been looking at what has been going on in Canada, which cancelled fall sports altogether. This was a decision that was made weeks ago, even though Canada has a much lower infection rate than the United States.
Ultimately, I hope that American colleges and universities take a rational look at the impact that a fall season will have on the health of their student-athletes rather than genuflect to the multibillion-dollar industry of collegiate sports.
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