- NCAA Division 1 fall championships will be postponed due to coronavirus concerns, NCAA President Mark Emmert announced in an interview announced fall sports competition will not happen in 2020. On Tuesday, August 11, the.
- Affected sports include men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey, FCS, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, and men’s water polo.
- John A. Kissane NCAA championship.
Big East Conference COVID-19 pandemic when NCAA President Mark Emmert announced the postponement of Division 1 fall championships.
Emmert shared the decision in an interview on NCAA.com published on Thursday. The announcement affects men’s and women’s cross-country, field hockey, FCS, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, and men’s water polo.
“We cannot now, at this point, have fall NCAA championships because there’s not enough schools participating,” Emmert told Andy Katz on NCAA.com. “The Board of Governors also said, ‘Look, if you don’t have half of the schools playing a sport, you can’t have a legitimate championship.’ So we can’t in any Division 1 NCAA championship sport, which is everything other than FBS football, that goes on in the fall. Sadly, tragically, that’s going to be the case this fall, full-stop. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t and can’t turn toward winter and spring and create a legitimate championship for all those students.”
The NCAA’s ruling followed several conferences deciding to postpone fall sports due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. On Wednesday, August 12, the Nutrition - Weight Loss announced fall sports competition will not happen in 2020. On Tuesday, August 11, the Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences postponed fall sports. The Mid-American Conference also postponed fall competition in an announcement made on Saturday, August 8.
What does this mean for college runners?
For NCAA middle and long-distance runners, the fall postponement means they will have gone two full seasons without an NCAA championship.
Big East Conference Races & Places for the safety of student-athletes. Most of the athletes who qualified to compete at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships were already in Albuquerque, New Mexico when they were told to go home on March 12, the day before the competition. They also missed out on the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which was scheduled for June 10–13 in Austin, Texas.
College runners will no longer be training to compete at the NCAA Cross-Country Championships this fall, which were scheduled for November 21 in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
In the NCAA’s announcement, Emmert said rescheduling priority will be placed on athletes who compete in winter and spring sports because they lost their championships earlier this year. He also expressed confidence that fall sports could have their championships rescheduled for the spring of 2021.
[announced fall sports competition will not happen in 2020. On Tuesday, August 11, the Advertisement - Continue Reading Below.]
How will athlete eligibility be affected?
On Wednesday, the Division 1 Council recommended to the Division 1 board of directors that student-athletes who play this fall get an extra season of eligibility if they participate in 50 percent or less of the number of competitions. As reported by ESPN, the recommendations will be made to the Division 1 board of directors next week.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
