May be nothing more than just saying they are including student-athletes in the discussion. Just an odd Saturday release to me. 1596299856.jpg
May be nothing more than just saying they are including student-athletes in the discussion. Just an odd Saturday release to me. 1596299856.jpg
Ahh, I get it. An article from the Washington Post today.
I don't subscribe, so I can't read it, but here's a posted excerpt, and now I see why they released that statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport....co/2WjcGQqkAM1596300138.jpg
@ByPatForde: Reaction to WaPo story. The words "intended to be confidential" would indicate that the league is a bit chapped by the circulation of the zoom call contents: https://twitter.com/SEC/status/1289600907726876672
Sounds as though the student athletes will have a say to me. Now, possibly the final say.
“Before I leave I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations,
“I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it.”
-Patriot and Senator. John McCain
By the way... I don't get the big deal here. Of course there will be cases. There are cases of the flu, sprained ankles, broken bones, and concussions every year and they can't prevent them, either. Are people really freaked out about that comment? I'm a very respectful, cautious, conservative person as it relates to Covid-19, but it's absurd to treat it as wholly unavoidable. That comment isn't upsetting.Originally Posted by Darrell KSR
@GregSankey: The @SEC is proud to conduct calls w/student-athletes for candid conversation & greater understanding of issues important to them. A FB Student-Athlete Leadership call was held this week w/our medical advisors to provide insight & respond to their questions related to COVID-19. https://twitter.com/sec/status/1289600907726876672
@GregSankey: The call was intended to be confidential to encourage honest conversation and directly provide S/A’s with information & a forum for dialogue. We will work diligently to make the right decisions, with the best information available, in a dynamic and changing environment.
@GregSankey: While no tweet or quote fully captures every aspect of any meeting, the student-athletes participating on Wednesday’s Football Leadership Council videoconference concluded with this comment, “Thank you. We appreciate the information and hope we can do this again.”
Frankly, the students athletes are much safer spending much of their time in organized, controlled environments than free lancing out in the general public. You can expect a college student to spend the bulk of their time sequestered behind locked doors
@BarrettSallee: SEC players express concerns with officials over college football season amid COVID-19 pandemic
https://www.cbssports.com/college-fo...d-19-pandemic/
This thing is so contagious many people will be infected. That doesn’t mean we should not be cautious but we have to function as a society.
College athletics doesn’t have to continue as we know it. But for kids who wish to play in the nfl, it is really he best preparation we have.
Disease is maddening. So stressful on every front.
Most of these newspaper subscription articles can be read on iPhones and iPads using the private mode. I don’t know what the android equivalent is.
Text of the article:
The meeting, which took place Wednesday, included more than a dozen SEC football players, members of the conference’s medical advisory board and SEC officials, including Commissioner Greg Sankey. It was designed as a “confidential free exchange,” an SEC spokesman said in an email, where the league’s medical advisers could “hear questions and our student-athletes were able to hear answers."
But the recording offers a window into how conference officials — keen on keeping a multibillion dollar industry afloat amid the novel coronavirus pandemic — are, and aren’t, reassuring the athletes they need to make the season a reality.
“There are going to be outbreaks,” one official told players on the call. (The official didn’t identify himself, and the SEC spokesman declined to identify him to The Post.) “We’re going to have positive cases on every single team in the SEC. That’s a given. And we can’t prevent it.”
“We’re never going to be 100 percent."
As the 2020 season barrels closer, several high-profile programs have already grappled with outbreaks. Some have had to temporarily suspend workouts, including Michigan State and Rutgers, which are both in isolation after several players tested positive.
Players in the SEC and other conferences have the option to opt out of this season and retain their scholarships. But so far just a handful of players at top schools have done so, preferring to skip the season and preserve a year of NCAA eligibility rather than risk infection.
Caleb Farley, an NFL-bound cornerback from Virginia Tech, said this week that he lost his mother to breast cancer and couldn’t stomach the idea of losing another family member. Ra’Von Bonner, a reserve running back at the University of Illinois, told The Post the risks of playing outweighed the reward.
SEC narrows football season to 10 games per team, eliminates nonconference schedule
Players on the SEC call, who were part of a “student-athlete leadership council,” raised similar concerns, with one player asking: “For so much unknown in the air right now, is it worth having a football season without certainty?”
Sankey, who earned a $2.5 million salary in 2018, responded: “Part of our work is to bring as much certainty in the midst of this really strange time as we can so you can play football in the most healthy way possible, with the understanding there aren’t any guarantees in life."
The players were especially concerned with what happens once their universities reopen. When they returned for workouts this summer, their campuses were largely empty. Most of the people they interacted with were those inside their cloistered and regimented football programs, where regular testing and the potential ire of their powerful coaches made adherence to public health guidelines a must for many athletes.
MoMo Sanogo, a linebacker at the University of Mississippi, asked the officials on the call why his school planned to bring thousands of students to campus for fall classes. Sanogo said he has four classes per week, and he fears some of those classmates will go to bars and parties at night, then unknowingly infect football players during class.
"Why have students been allowed to come back on campus if we're trying to have a football season?"
The answer Sanogo received shed light on the pressure that university presidents, who rely on college football for prestige and revenue, face to reopen their campuses this fall, even as the pandemic surges. “It’s one of those things where if students don’t come back to campus, then the chances of having a football season are almost zero,” an official who did not identify himself said.
The official told Sanogo that class sizes would be smaller so students can sit six feet apart from one another, and that face coverings should help keep students safe. But he admitted the arrangement was “not fair” to athletes, who might take every precaution but still be infected by the students who don’t.
He suggested that Sanogo, 21, remind the people around him to behave responsibly. “As un-fun as it sounds,” the official said, “the best thing that you can do is just try to encourage others to act more responsibly and not put yourself in those kinds of situations. I’m very comfortable with what we’ve done on campus. I’m concerned about what happens from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m.”
Sanogo kept pushing. “How can y’all help us?” he asked. He referenced the concept of a “bubble,” the insular playing environments employed by pro basketball and ice hockey, and compared it with his bustling college campus. Another member of the task force told him that his mask would offer protection, and he could be a role model for others to wear one. She told him to sit at the back of classrooms and not engage in close conversations.
Brewer: Sports leagues are trying to salvage a year. They should be trying to save a future.
The officials’ uncertainty was not lost on Keeath Magee II, a Texas A&M linebacker, who wondered aloud whether starting the season with so many unanswered questions would be something the officials would come to regret.
“You guys have answered a lot of questions the best way that you guys could, and we really appreciate it. But as much as you guys don’t know … it’s just kind of not good enough,” he said. “We want to play. We want to see football. We want to return to normal as much as possible. But it’s just that with all this uncertainty, all this stuff that’s still circulating in the air, y’all know it kind of leaves some of us still scratching my head. … I feel like the college campus is the one thing that you can’t control.”
"It's not good enough."
Sankey highlighted how much decision-makers in sports have learned in the past four months, and how they will continue to adapt. He said the SEC and member schools are committed to creating the “best environment possible in this new reality.”
Another athlete, who did not identify himself, sought more information about the effects of the virus itself: “What information do you have about the lasting effects on players who may contract covid?”
The moderator promptly directed the question to Shawn Gibbs, dean of Texas A&M’s School of Public Health. Gibbs promptly punted. “Remember,” he said. “I’m an industrial hygienist, so I’m not the medical person here.”
Marshall Crowther, a sports medicine physician at the University of Mississippi, stepped in. “The problem is a lot of this we don’t know,” Crowther said. Most people, he said, seem to not have lasting effects. He acknowledged the growing concerns among medical experts about how the virus affects people’s hearts but said there has not been enough time to conduct long-term studies.
The college football season is in trouble
Catherine O’Neal, a professor of medicine who specializes in infectious diseases, chimed in then, describing how young medical residents at her hospital who have contracted the virus have complained of being exhausted for four-to-six weeks. If that happened to college football players, she pointed out, it could affect their performance.
“Even though we’re saying you’re great because you’re not hospitalized,” O’Neal said, “it’s going to take something out of you.”
O’Neal did not return a request for comment Friday. Nor did Crowther or Gibbs.
Another player, who was not identified on the call, asked the medical experts plainly: “If we were your kids, would y’all let us play in this same football season with the same protocols and uncertainty?”
“If we were your kids, would y’all let us play in this same football season?"
“One of my sons has played baseball for the last five, six weeks,” said one official, who didn’t identify himself. “And I can tell you, I have a couple of kids that have played soccer over the last four weeks. I don’t have great concerns about them contracting it during play.
“We can’t be 100 percent,” he went on. “We’re never going to be 100 percent.”
Several players who participated did not respond to requests for comment or could not be reached. The SEC spokesman, Herb Vincent, said the players found the meeting “productive” and asked for another, which Vincent said the conference will schedule.
After this story published online, the SEC issued a statement which reads, in part: “The SEC hosts videoconferences with the SEC Football Student-Athlete Leadership Council to engage in candid conversation, share information and develop greater understanding of issues important to our student-athletes. … The information we gather while engaging with student-athletes helps inform Conference decisions and provides an opportunity to share information with our campus leaders to further enhance our continuing support of the student-athlete experience.”
During the call, Sankey, the commissioner, also relayed a conversation he had with his two daughters about how they should continue their lives during this pandemic by taking personal responsibility and encouraging others to do the same.
“My advice is you’re going to have to go live your life in this environment,” the commissioner said. “I think that’s the challenge that we’re trying to meet.”
Kevin Blackistone contributed to this report, which has been updated.
Thanks, Keith - it worked. It's Incognito mode on android phones.
Very interesting article and good discussion.
Keith, thanks again for the tip.
I keep hoping and hoping that we have a football season this year while I don’t want to do that if it means more suffering and death. The SEC and any conference that wants to make it past the first couple of games are probably going to have to put their programs in their own little bubbles and do it now.
changing my signature to change our luck.
I really believe it can be done relatively safely. But there's going to have to be a whole lot of smart people making smart decisions to accomplish it.
The players asked good questions: Is it too dangerous to play football? And also Would you let your child play football.
One thing that wasn't addressed in the article and presumably the meeting, student athletes is not as accurate a term as essential non-paid employees.
I am not trying to dismiss the scholarship which is a huge opportunity to be utilized by the players.
But without football there will be in short order no athletic departments.
I am unsure as a society how we jump back into action. I am flying home to help my mother and step dad move into a new home.
I am scheduling two COVID tests and a separate place to quarantine while my results come in. Even that I fear that I may re-infect my family who battled COVID in March and April to come out the other side weakened but not near death.
It is a tough situation all the way around. What is an acceptable risk tolerance for the country? And the economy and our livelihoods do come into play.
As communicable as this thing is, it will be hard to not have breakouts across the league.
Don’t play...plain and simple... it will cost athletes a crap ton of money if they don’t play.. so, honestly just don’t play. This country is being held hostage and we wont know what the demands will be to release us until mid November
After the election I surmise there will be a whole new narrative out there
Would you guys please stop with the politics?
I am absolutely sick and tired of not being able to discuss something like this without some stupid political input into it. Stop it already.
I'm going for a run, so I won't be checking the board for about an hour. If anybody is offended by this, feel free to hit me up, and I will respond. I promise I'm not ignoring you if I don't respond right away.
Can I respond for you? I may not be as "politic", pun intended.
We have to try to separate the two if we're to have any "normal" for discussion on here. It's just that simple. No doubt politics bleeds into everything these days, but we all have to make an effort to preserve some kind of separation of we won't ever find respite from it, and that's the main reason people are here.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
It works for Lex H-L articles also.
I’m to the point I hope they don’t play so they can see all the $$$ they lose
https://www.espn.com/college-footbal...justice-safety
Much thanks.
It just sucks. I just saw that on Twitter. I think we're done.
Look I apologize for making it political..I’m amazed we are 6-7 months into this and we still have no answers and freak out, especially our left wing media goes nuts every time there is a positive. It just seems we like we are in corn maze that is setup for the country to fail..
They'll find out about injustice when they have no scholarships, no college education and no development for the NFL.
The SEC players seemed to really want to play, they seemed more worried about having to be around the non-football players than being around each other or other teams.
People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.
Exactly
The cruel reality is that football drives the economic bus. No football and nothing--tv revenue gone. Facilities--gone. Women's athletic scholarships--Bye bye.
I don't want folks in harm's way or players getting loved ones sick. I am flying home to help my family. It is entirely possible I will get sick and maybe get my family in Kentucky or my wife sick upon my return. I will be wearing a mask, gloves, face shield, long sleeves and long pants. who knows
I say that to say there is risk in any endeavor.
Not to get political, we are in a time like we have not seen seen in our history. Pandemic and outbreaks of bad illnesses have occurred. Poor economic times have come and gone. Racial strife--we have seen that too.
But all together? Not like this.
What is really tough is that sports is such a unifier in communities. Today we could use some unity. Some fun and joy. Sports, unfortunately, may not be the answer this season.
The National Press has Sankey in their cross-hairs. He will get no slack.
Real Fan since 1958
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