Impact Covid Has On College Sports

By

 Kaleb Steele, Staff Writer

There have been some conferences that are still on shutdown, though others have already started playing some sports again. It all started back in Spring”,” when conference tournaments were getting started for March Madness (the biggest tournament in College Basketball). Two teams were just getting started for warmups, the Michigan Wolverines and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights”,” until the announcer in the arena said everyone must leave in an organized fashion. Fifteen minutes later we didn’t have College Basketball for the rest of that season.

Over in the College Football world they didn’t have any Spring camps and the recruiting will be all virtual. Their season also got pushed back by a month. and some conferences haven’t even started yet. I got the opportunity to talk with starting DE Laquan Johnson Jr from Flint, Michigan. He was red shirted his first year so it’s his third year at the university but his second year playing. Laquan had a breakout year leading his team to the MAC Championship I asked him what impact does Covid have on your team. Laquan answered with, “It’s had an impact on us because we are limited when we are inside doing stuff then we usually are. Then with all the guidelines that come with it just makes everything different.” Then I also asked Laquan, About the team enforced guidelines to stay healthy? Laquan said, Six feet apart, mask on at all times, wipe down everything after your done using it, no sharing water bottles, temperature check everyday, hand sanitize and social distance when your at the football and stay by yourself. State guidelines have been determining the amount of fans or if they even have one fan in the stands. This could hurt a teams morale and motivation. I asked Laquan what is the team morale and what are they doing to keep the morale as a team up he stated, “Do What’s Right! THEY’RE DOING WHATS RIGHT, and that’s all you can do to keep that morale in place!”

The College Basketball season is set to tip off by November 2and the date is still to be determined. All the guidelines are also to be determined for the upcoming College Basketball season as well. Upcoming college freshmen will take a hit when it comes to getting visits to college campuses. 

Over in College Soccer”,” the season got cancelled for about a month and then the conferences that wanted to come back were allowed to. There’s also no recruiting allowed until possibly January 1, 2021”,” but that is still up in the air. 

But from COVID, most Division one colleges lost thousands to millions of dollars. COVID has had a very big impact on seniors in sports as well”,” but luckily for them this year of eligibility in their sport doesn’t count”,” so they have an option to stay one more year or leave.