By Arthur Vidro
By Arthur Vidro
Pro sports are trying very hard to resume action. Some of them – horse racing, car racing, golf – are making a good go at it, albeit without many spectators.
A shortened baseball season has just begun, and a truncated resumption of the basketball season will soon follow.
Will they succeed? I don’t know. My crystal ball is in the repair shop. But they have a chance.
Baseball has a chance because some players can go a whole game without getting close to anyone else except the catcher and home-plate umpire.
Basketball players have far more up-close exposure to others on the court, but they are trying the isolation-in-a-bubble gambit.
Professional football, though, has a far tougher hill to climb. So many players on the team. Collisions on every play. Many teams play more games indoors than outdoors.
I don’t think they can pull it off.
But because of the money factor, they will try.
There are pluses and minuses to playing football this autumn. The bottom line, though, is how much risk are the schools and their amateur athletes, or the pro leagues and the pro players, willing to undertake?
The NFL players, through their union, at least participated in the decision to stage games. Not so the collegiate players.
The pros are being paid to take their risks. But not the students.
The Ivy League is to be commended for quickly and resolutely pulling the plug on its college football season this fall.
They realized there’s no sure way to make the games sufficiently safe.
Maybe other college leagues will play games, and maybe things will stay safe for weeks, or a month, or two, or for the full season. Or maybe not. But the odds will be against the participants.
COVID-19 will still be with us, and it’s not going to skip the athletes.
I am glad the Ivy League student-athletes won’t be put at risk just to play ball. I define “student-athlete” as someone who is primarily a full-time student but also plays ball for the school on the side. As happens in the Ivy League.
But there are fewer and fewer student-athletes each decade. More and more of them have become athlete-students. Let me explain.
As a college freshman, I was assigned to a suite that included several student-athletes. Alfarone and Diaz played football, Zucatti basketball. Perhaps they had reduced tuition because of their playing; I don’t pretend to know. It was a state university, a Division III school, and no athlete there ever pretended they would make it to the pros.
They were students first.
When my alarm went off before 7 a.m. for my 8 a.m. writing class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Alfarone was already out of the room we shared, had already breakfasted, and was at football practice. Practice started very early, so as not to interfere with classes.
These guys took their studies seriously. If their grades dropped, they couldn’t play their sport.
When they traveled to play against other teams, the student-athletes rode a school bus.
The games were not televised. Money was not at stake.
But for schools today that have their games televised, broadcast money is at stake, and the participants are not solely student-athletes. They are more likely to be “athlete-students” – people attending college primarily to play sports for their school, while attending classes on the side. When they travel to play a game, athlete-students frequently go by airplane.
All across the nation, institutions of higher education are grappling with difficult decisions. Reopen college campuses entirely? Partially? Not at all? Likewise for dormitories and school cafeterias.
Collegiate sports are facing difficult decisions too. Such as, how to pull off a season during these COVID-19 days. In many cases, the allure of money will be a large motivating factor.
Student-athletes will not play football this fall, I predict.
But athlete-students will play, for as long as the games are played.
I fear we might see a school where most classes will be conducted remotely but their football games will somehow still get played. Although unlikely, it could happen.
It’s all a question of priorities.
When television contracts are involved, big money is involved.
And money has a way of swaying priorities.
If you have consumerism questions, send them to Arthur Vidro in the care of this newspaper, which publishes his column every weekend.
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