A Grip on Sports: Is the Ivy League’s decision the canary in a coal mine or just another blip on the fall’s sports landscape?
A GRIP ON SPORTS • In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, there was a hypothesis that dominated America’s international thinking. The domino theory. Turns out it wasn’t true, though it took thousands of American lives to prove it wrong. In a year in which even more American lives have been lost in a war with a virus, we’re probably going to find out if the theory applies to college athletics.
•••••••
• Wednesday, the Ivy League announced it would not hold athletic competitions in the fall semester, which runs the rest of this year. And yes, that means no football this fall.
Why would an FCS league, one that doesn’t allow its champions to take part in the “C” aspect of FCS, even cause a ripple in the college football pond dominated by the Power 5’s big fish?
It’s mainly due to the weight words like Harvard, Yale and Princeton have on the non-sports community in this nation.
Ask a football fan what college comes to mind and, after their alma mater, they will probably blurt out Notre Dame or USC or Alabama or Clemson. Ask a non-football fan – still the majority of Americans, though that might be hard to believe – and the three schools in the paragraph above more than likely would be among their choices.
What Harvard – and by extension in this case, the rest of the Ivy League schools – decides influences decision makers throughout the world, not just in our country. The worldwide impact is not that important in this context, though it does impact how our priorities are perceived internationally. What really matters is how the decision will affect the rest of America’s football-playing institutions.
When the Ivy League pulled the plug on its basketball tournament last ye … wait, that was just last March. Anyhow, when it pulled the plug, other leagues and schools were given cover to follow. Now, with the league deciding it’s not safe to hold football and volleyball and other sports, it’s not cover the Ivy schools are providing. It’s a baseline for discussion.
And that discussion won’t just be happening in administrative buildings and boardrooms. It will occur in living rooms and kitchens around America.
The most prestigious universities in the nation have decided it’s not safe for its student/athletes to be competing yet. That will hold weight with mothers and fathers who worry about their sons and daughters.
Is it more important for a Yale soccer player to stay away from the interactions on the pitch than it is for someone at Gonzaga? How about a Dartmouth football player and one at Eastern Washington? A Penn volleyball player as opposed to their Washington State counterpart?
There isn’t a difference in relative importance – yes, the pun was intentional – in the athletes’ homes. And there shouldn’t be. Every one is important. Doing what’s right is important. Valuing students, and student/athletes, is important.
The Ivy League has decided those values include sitting out the fall as the pandemic rages. It is important to its member schools. Other colleges and universities may make other choices. Their values may be different. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.
But because the nation’s leading academic institutions made their decision, it will make it harder for everyone else to follow a different path.
• There is a school of thought – the correct school of thought, actually – the Ryder Cup isn’t the Ryder Cup without fans. Not since it’s gotten feisty in the past 40 years anyway.
With that in mind, golf’s powers that be decided this isn’t the right year to hold the bi-annual competition between U.S. and European golfers. Next year would be better, when, hopefully, fans can roam Whistling Straits, enjoy Wisconsin’s finest products, chant “U.S.A, U.S.A.” and be generally obnoxious. They made the official announcement yesterday of what everyone already knew.
But the domino theory actually does work here. With the Ryder Cup the first of the international competitions to fall, the President’s Cup, scheduled for next year, has to be pushed back. From there, the phrase “and so on” comes into play.
Ironically, the postponement means the Ryder Cup will return to a place on the golf schedule it held for decades, until 9/11 happened. Up until 2001, the Ryder Cup had been an odd-year event. But that national tragedy forced a postponement that September and a switch to even-numbered years. Now, because of a pandemic, the competition will go back to being on odd-numbered years.
What an odd year this even one has been.
•••
Gonzaga: College basketball personality Seth Davis has a list of his 10 favorite places to watch college hoops in The Athletic today. No. 1 is Kansas’ Allen Fieldhouse. The only West Coast facility on his list? That would be No. 8. Gonzaga’s McCarthey Athletic Center. … Elsewhere in the WCC, Loyola Marymount’s new basketball coach, Stan Johnson, intends to stay a while. Wonder if his won/loss record in a couple years will have something to say about that.
WSU: Around the Pac-12 and college sports, the big news yesterday was Stanford’s announcement it is dropping almost as many sports as Washington State offers. The Cardinal will eliminate 11, though not all are NCAA-sponsored sports. The big ones? Men’s volleyball, field hockey and wrestling. Unlike the Ivy League’s decision to put off football until possibly spring, this first-in-the-Power-5 decision is probably more of a trend. … With everything that is going on, we wonder if Oregon president Michael Schill is happy to moving into a position of importance for the conference. … Oregon State’s outside linebackers are among the conference’s best. … An opinion of one Arizona State professor is interesting, though probably won’t have an impact on fall sports. … Will the Schooler brothers get to play together for Arizona this season? … In basketball news, Colorado has filled out its roster.
EWU: Cooper Kupp is the type of alum every school would like to have. Ryan Collingwood’s story today explains another in a long line of reasons why. He’s a star athlete, sure, but Kupp is more than that.
Hoopfest: Ever wonder how the event’s ball is designed? Well, wonder no more. Connor Gilbert explains it all in this story.
Mariners: The M’s coronavirus testing has resulted in three positives, though the names haven’t been announced. … As the season draws nearer, we can pass along stories about Mitch Haniger, Justin Dunn, Yusei Kikuchi, Marco Gonzales, a couple prospects turning heads, Emerson Hancock and a couple stories on Austin Adams.
Sounders: Life in the MLS-built Orlando bubble is not the most exciting, as the Times’ Matt Calkins tells us.
•••
• Last week there was a big AAU tournament in Salt Lake City. This week another was scheduled. Not anymore. It had to be canceled after a player from last week tested positive. What a shock. (OK, that’s sarcastic.) Until later …