Big 10 football. I know that lighting up FBS football makes money for the entire program, but it does not allow equal access for woman’s Fall sports. That scholarships are still being provided does not eliminate the equal need for the woman to play their sports. I think we may see some Title IX issues being raised here. That Trump has totally politicized this issue for his reelection efforts is just plain stupid. When the kids cant show up for practice or for the games (which has already happened) will he take the blame? Not likely.

Not on the WSJ. We are good there!

Goes to show if you pick the right methodology you can pretty much pick the outcome.

Yes, and remember that a mere coxswain at Berkeley by the name of Dean Witter (1909) who with his financial support propelled that program into the giant that it now is in US rugby. If you really want to see how a minor collegiate athletic program gets its support go to the Berkeley Rugby website. It’s alumni support is just amazing. We can do the same. We have a lot of very wealthy alums. Some have said that they were never even asked to donate. I think that is changing now. It sure better. Remember the great Jack Anderson? He should be the role model.

Aggie baseball is first class and has a great tradition. For all of its “built by volunteers” issues, Dobbins is an impressive collegiate baseball facility. As I recall, it and the nearby soccer field (also “volunteer built’) had to be built, as State financed facilities, to CalTrans Specifications which at the time were unknown to the volunteers and were really difficult and very expensive (curbs had to adhere to state highway specs!) to deal with to by the “amateurs” but they did IT! AND these “amateurs” were smart enough to put in the infrastructure for future LIGHTS! This forward thinking should be rewarded by a donor or donors who will finish this project with LIGHTS! We need a formal fundraising effort to get this done. IMHO

Interesting article. Josh Johnson was a very capable QB. But I remember him best for his actions at Aggie Stadium, especially when he got so upset at the student section (which was then behind the visiting team). When the students saw that they could get under his skin they just turned up their taunting until he literally tried to climb into the stands to fight the students. I believe the home team side was switched after that fiasco.

In the dystopian world envisioned by GoAgs he might be right. Somewhat more reasonable is if the NCAA (Very unlikely), the Congress (somewhat unlikely), the State Legislatures (some not unlikely at all) or the Supreme Court (very likely indeed) finally rule that scholarship student athletes are “employees” (see: “workman’s compensation coverage”) of the school or team they belong to or are otherwise deemed eligible to be paid a fair wage for their efforts on the field or court on which they play, then all bets are off for the present scheme of US college sports. This is an issue that will be accelerated in this Covid 19 crisis. If that happens US college football as we know it will be dead. But then we could adopt the UK Bucs system (and I am no expert here at all). The UK does offer athletic scholarships at it’s universities, but they are tied to whether an athlete has qualified for “international” status as an athlete. Yes, and the UK does not have US college football to deal with. Unfortunately, we do.

So if we have to cut a sport or two how do we do it? By popularity or by fitness and health? As Stanford continues to be excoriated in the press for eliminating 11 mostly “Olympic sports” what do we do if we need to cut? I would say none of the below sports which are considered to be the best for fitness and health. No surprises here:
1- swimming
2- tennis
3- rowing
4- wrestling
5- squash
6- basketball
7- cycling
8- etc.
Notice no baseball, golf, softball, football, rugby etc. it is because these sports do not involve all the major muscle growths of the human body and/or are very intermittent (Football) and some i.e baseball and softball are even somewhat sedentary sports. See cricket which even has tea breaks. If I have infuriated anyone I am sorry, but I did have to do it. So: phase out FH and bring back Crew (if we still have the boats- which are very expensive). Oh, and by the way the FH gals could easily transition to crew because they have extremely strong leg muscles which are a key to good crew performance. Source: Fitness Magazine

Well, as you all know, it is not turning out very promising for the schools that decided to open up early. UNC, Penn, Tenn, ND and especially Purdue (whose Prez is a former GOP Governor), all are, mostly cancelling on campus classes To remote classes after opening up for in-class instruction. (It is driving the faculty nuts). Not so for the athletes. They have to stay and be potentially exposed.
So, yes to movie, we have politicized the game of football. But, then in these times, what is not political like the dog I saw being walked yesterday wearing a MAGA collar?

I made a very big mistake in my last post. It was UNC, not NC State that changed its Covid plan. And, they did not do the right thing for the athletes, only for the common student. The athletes must stay on and prepare for a game this month against Syracuse. This could be a huge mistake that could reverberates throughout FBC football and even all winter sports.

Movie makes a good point on mortality rates, but it is now appearing that there are many other diseases that may be a direct result of the Covid virus infection that are not technically in the category of a “mortality” i.e. the new evidence that myocarditis is being detected in many young athletes who have caught and then survived the virus. Myocarditis can be fatal for young athletes. Look what happened at NC State which did not do the right thing at first and then did the right thing. I like Hex’s use of the term “preventable tragedy” as it is right on point. WP article says it all.

Excellent in depth article in the washington post today regarding the potential legal liability of college and universities that go forward with football this fall. Explains the legal theories of liability against various defendants including: the football coaches, the medical staff, the university, the conference and even the NCAA. Describes the potential defenses available to the defendants including “assumption of the risk” by the players (weak) and other defenses/issues like “lack of proof of causation” (Strong), i.e very hard to prove that the player got the virus from another team mate and not at a bar? Says the NCAA has outlawed the use of signed waivers for players which I did not know. Bottom line: there will be many lawsuits if football is played this fall and players get sick. If someone could cut and paste this article it would be great.

PAC 12 cancelled all sports to 2021, including MBB and WBB, so surely the BWC will follow suit. So she was looking at perhaps 2 years of not playing (as we do not yet know how the NCAA will rule on resulting eligibility issues). This no doubt factored in to her decision.

PAC 12 AND BIG 10 TO ANNOUNCE DECISION TO CANCEL 2020 FALL FOOTBALL ON TUESDAY

That is according to Dan Patrick on his show this morning. Big 10 vote was 12-2 with only Iowa and Nebraska voting to play. do not know the PAC 12 vote. My guess is that it was unanimous.

Very tough choices. This is where Kevin Blue’s job went from being a dream job to a nightmare. Bet he has had many phone conversations with the Stanford AD on this subject.

Great post by Go on a topic that is unfortunate to contemplate. But I do think that creative minds can work this thing out. I agree that football for UCD is not going to be cut. Nor are MBB and WBB. Any of the rest of the sports are like Go says vulnerable. For one, I don't think that scholarships are that big a cost issue. These so-called minor or “Olympic Sports” have relatively few hard Other costs except for travel and thats where I think all the major California universities should get together and work out how these sports can just play in California and maybe Nevada (what is the matter with two games a year with Sac?) Gone will be the days where the lacrosse team goes on an extended east coast trip, or the WSB team goes to a Weekend tournament in Texas, or the equestrian team goes to Alabama. Yes, even the football team may just have to play close to home. A lot of money will be saved. I do agree that field hockey just is a bridge too far with two teams left in the entire west and may have to go. Baseball is on the bubble as Go very well says, i simply have no ideas or input on baseball. Alumni/parent support may decide the fate of these teams.

The Montana, Utah, AZ and ID teams will vote to go for it. CA, WA OR, CO teams will vote no so it is very doubtful there will be BSC football this year IMHO. So, again, a virus becomes a political "football". So sad.

Courageous new NCAA rules to confront the COVID virus announced today. “THIS WILL MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE!”
Both men and woman soccer players who spit on or at opponent players will now be told to sit out two games instead of the current one game sit.
You gotta be proud of our brave and dedicated NCAA to make these very tough decisions.
Other new anti COVID rules involve the football coin toss where now only the two team captains can attend with an official instead of four.
Probably Totally ineffectual, but I guess they are trying to be relevant. Somewhat funny, but very sad when you think about it.

It’s Groundhog Day at sac state once again. Sac Bee announced today that Kaiden Bennett QB out of Folsom HS will be transferring to sac state this fall. This will be his third transfer! He was recruited by Boise st. Then transferred to Nevada. Now to sac. Bee claims he will be immediately eligible with 4 years eligibility. Right out of the Thompson playbook. Quite surprising given that Taylor said sac was loaded with QBs after Thompson left. Guess they weren’t.

Yes, and this was a situation with adult professional baseball players with a union that agreed to play under these conditions with full knowledge of the possible bad health consequences. And look what happened. Not good at all. I cannot imagine that any university would subject its student athletes to the known serious dangers of this virus just to play football. The liability exposure for this is just beyond anything I can imagine. Maybe the asbestus lawsuits of the 2 past decades or so would be somewhat close, but these Victims were old guys who worked at Mare Island, Sausalito etc. in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s and were then in their 70’s, 80’s and even their ‘90’s with minimal life expectancies. And still their families won millions in damages at trial. I was there and I know. They were not kids killed or disabled at age 18-22. That was WW1. WW2. Korea. We have now lost more people to the virus than we lost in Vietnam Nam. Do we want to try for WW2 numbers? I would love for football to be played in the fall or even the spring, but I just don't think we should expect this at this point.