COVID-19 has had a major impact on every aspect of life. The question that comes to mind for student-athletes is, “are sports still in question for the upcoming season?” Fall sports for public D1 schools have either cancelled or pushed back their seasons.
Colleges have their own individual solutions as a result of COVID-19 including making their students go home around Thanksgiving break and switching fully to online schooling. This can make fall sports almost nonexistent in bigger types of schools.
But what is happening at the smaller populated colleges like Bethel and other National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) schools around the country? On July 31, the NAIA, the Council of Presidents (COP) agreed for upcoming fall sports, “to postpone the fall national football championship to spring 2021. This decision came after the COP voted earlier … to postpone championships in all other fall sports until spring. This decision still allows NAIA conferences to compete in the fall and winter, if they so choose.”
This decision puts some fate into each of the schools’ hands. Bethel college fall sports are all practicing under the strict COVID-19 protocols. These teams will not be able to travel outside of their conference to play games, they will have to stay inside of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) and only play KCAC opponents until their championships begin in the spring of 2021.
What is COVID-19 doing to affect the teams while they are practicing and going through workouts? All students and athletes are required to test for the virus when they arrive on campus and if positive, must sit out workouts and remain in quarantine for two weeks. After those two weeks, they cannot return to team activities until they are cleared.
All athletes must wear masks to and from workouts. The biggest setback for teams while practicing and working out is they must workout in groups. For example, the football team cannot all be in the weight room at once. They must separate and do lifting and conditioning in small groups maintaining a six foot distance between each other. The last precaution teams are taking during this pandemic is every athlete on the team must have their personal water bottle. They cannot share with their teammates to help prevent cross contamination between teammates.
With all these rules and restrictions on teams for the upcoming 2020-2021 season the question has to be asked how will it affect the play of these teams? They are getting less time together as a team meaning less communication and less chemistry they are developing during practice. Despite these restrictions, teams are adjusting well to sports practice, games and team chemistry.
