We had our chance to restart sports, but Big Ten announcement means we all blew it
It’s July 10, and our beloved, ingrained fall sports’ calendar built over the last several decades is primed to be torn down like another Christopher Columbus statue.
The Ivy League’s decision to cancel all fall sports is one thing, but when the Big Ten announced on Thursday if it is going to play at all this fall, it will be only conference games.
It’s time to break glass in case of emergency. Panic time.
Forget Aug. 1. Or Sept. 1.
The goal now is Jan. 1.
Whomever is to blame will be “decided” on Nov. 3, but when it comes to today it’s time we admit that we are all accountable. We all blew it.
Whether it was going to the grocery store, protests, bars, pool parties, hardware stores, campaign rallies, getting on a plane, or whatever preposterous phase we were told we were in, we failed miserably.
I can’t watch any more bleeping Law & Order, and I l-o-v-e Law & Order.
Dallas Independent School District superintendent Michael Hinojosa told MSNBC that he does not see “how we can pull that off” to have a football season. He expressed doubt on moving football to the spring as well.
When the Texas High School Coaches Association moved its annual convention, scheduled for July 19-21, to an online-only format rather than in-person in San Antonio, it served as a stark sign that the coming season is not going to happen.
The ACC and Pac-12 are reportedly going to follow the same path as the Big Ten, and cancel its non-conference games. The silver lining to all of these canceled college games is we no longer have to pretend Notre Dame is a power football program.
All of this means the Big 12 would lose the following games, at least: Iowa-Iowa State, TCU-California, Texas Tech-Arizona, West Virginia-Florida State and West Virginia-Maryland.
Translation, expect the Big 12 and SEC to make a similar announcement. There is no way the Big Ten, which features 14 schools, can cancel its non-conference games and the remaining four power leagues don’t follow.
As of 5 p.m. on July 9, TCU’s game with California on Sept. 5 in Berkeley is still “on,” per Horned Frogs’ athletic director Jeremiah Donati.
Given the way the needle is moving, it’s hard to envision how this game is played.
At least as of two days ago, Texas was planning to play Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl, even though the State Fair announced it is canceled for the year.
These announcements essentially buy the conferences, and college football, one more month. But it does not change the dynamic of whether campuses are open to the student body, or classes again are all online.
There is no way to have college sports without students on campus.
The likely scenario means everything is simply pushed back one season.
The Texas-LSU game, scheduled for Sept. 12, would likely just be moved back to 2021.
By eliminating the non-conference games, all of these schools and conferences are doing is retreating to the tiny square of dry land as the tide closes in on their toes while praying the water recedes.
We are already wet, and now are all about to get super soaked.
This isn’t about the kids who play the games, because we know by now they will all, God willing, be OK.
This is about the adults who make the games possible, because we know by now they just may not be OK. And we know by now that COVID-19 is not the flu.
(Oh, and it’s about lawyers, too. Where would we be without lawyers?)
Next on the list will be the other sports our kids play, most notably soccer.
We had our chance to bring the fall sports back, as scheduled, but we blew that.
We built the Modern Sports Prometheus, and now it’s coming down just like a regular statue.
