Some Big Ten football parents push back on postponement
The Big Ten has received considerable blowback for its decision last week to postpone the 2020 football season. And one of the loudest voices to emerge has been that of parents of Big Ten players.
The moms and dads of players from Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio State and Penn State are leading the charge. They want to know the thought process that went into making the decision to pull the plug on the season. The Rivals.com Iowa site--HawkeyeReport.com--provided a detailed look at the campaign by Hawkeye parents.
According to HawkeyeReport.com, the Iowa parents are looking to have meetings and input in the process, along with the players and coaches who have been impacted by the decision and hope to have a response by August 19th.
Will the action by parents make a difference? Stay tuned.
The football parents at another Big Ten school apparently have no plans to take their concerns over postponement of the 2020 season to the conference office in Rosemont, Ill.
"At this point, I have not had any parents voice frustration to me with the Big 10’s decision," a Big Ten head coach texted to GoldandBlack.com on Sunday morning. "They (parents) were genuinely concerned (about the health/safety of players) prior to the decision."
From what GoldandBlack.com has learned, it doesn't appear that Purdue parents have any intent to organize, either.
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren has said the conference made its decision on Tuesday based on the advice it had gotten from medical experts amid reports that multiple Big Ten players had been diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart that can be linked with viral infections.
Indiana true freshman offensive lineman Brady Feeney had a serious health scare with COVID-19, as outlined by his mother in a Facebook post earlier this month.
The decision not to play this fall by the Big Ten was abrupt. The league unveiled a revised 10-game, Big Ten-only schedule on Wednesday, August 5. Then, six days later on August 11, the conference postponed the season.
The unknown long-term health impact of infection by COVID-19 is a big concern, as well as the aforementioned developing knowledge of the virus’ impact on the heart. The Big Ten felt the health and safety of its players would be in too much peril if a season was played.
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"One of the things we promised ourselves was this was going to be fluid, day-to-day situation and we'd be on a perpetual state of observing and gathering information," Warren said on the day of postponement. "The over-arching reason and the over-arching issue we had to always keep at the top of our mind was the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes was at the top of my list."
Just like that, Big Ten presidents and Warren made one of the boldest moves in the history of college sports. There will be no football in the fall of 2020 in the Big Ten. And the ramifications of the decision will have a tidal-wave of consequences—many of which are financial.
In the aftermath of the decision not to play, Nebraska and Ohio State postured about going rogue and playing games outside the Big Ten if the 2020 season was shuttered. But each school subsequently backed off those plans.
While the Pac-12 joined the Big Ten in punting on the 2020 season, the SEC, Big 12 and ACC—the other three Power Five leagues—are pushing forward. And their hopes could be buoyed by the development of a COVID-19 saliva test called SalivaDirect that may be a game-changer to control the spread of the virus.
While the saliva test is promising on many levels, it likely won't be able to impact the 2020 college football season. Testing, development, distribution issues remain. But it offers hope to perhaps play in the spring, which is the Big Ten's plan.
For now, the Big Ten has opted to err on the side of caution. And the SEC, ACC and Big 12 may be forced to do the same as the season inches closer. Schools already are seeing spikes in infections as students return to campuses across the nation.
Many questions loom in an ever-shifting college football landscape.
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