Now It Looks Like The Entire NESCAC Season Is Over, And These Seniors Better Get Some Extra Eligibility
Tufts - Following a decision of the NESCAC presidents, the NESCAC league and championship play are canceled. Further, Tufts, like many of our NESCAC colleagues, will not have any spring sports for the remainder of the semester. We await guidance from the NCAA about eligibility for spring post-season play. We realize this will be upsetting to our athletes and their supporters. We recognize the dedication and hard work of our student athletes, and we look forward to resumption of NESCAC competition in the future.
First things first, I think we can all agree that ***objectively speaking*** it's better to overreact to save a life rather than underreact to save a season. No need to argue about that. Even as outrageously drastic as this is, we can admit it's still better than a healthy 20-year-old unknowingly passing the virus off to a grandparent or a sibling with respiratory issues. So I get it, from an objective standpoint.
But that doesn't change the fact that this fucking suuuuuuuuuucks for all of these teams involved, and especially the seniors. I mean...can't you at least try to play games without anyone in the crowd first and see if the numbers start to slow down? I just feel like there could possibly be some middle ground here between those who say "it's just the flu, bro" and a total nuclear option like this. Maybe a "hey, let's just be really cautious about this" type of option, which would be playing with nobody in attendance.
And I realize that the majority of the schools in the NESCAC aren't necessarily institutions that actually give a damn about athletics. It's a very woke conference. The type of conference that probably refers to athletics as "sports ball" and then laughs to themselves while they sniff their own farts. But still. You've got an entire class of guys here who have spent 4 years at these institutions. This is their family. They've lived with these guys, they've trained with these guys, they've done everything with their guys for 4 years. That type of relationship and bond means everything in life so it's just as it's not "just the flu", you can't turn around and say it's "just a game". Because it means so much more than that to all of these guys who now had to have their career end like this.
That's 4 years of your life and now it's just over. That's capital F Fucked. So fucked that all these kids better get an extra year of eligibility here. And even that wouldn't be enough because NESCAC schools aren't cheap, and technically speaking DIII schools aren't allowed to give athletic scholarships. And it's not like most of these guys would want to play just one more year of college lacrosse at a cheaper school with a bunch of guys who they didn't just spend the last 4 years of their lives with. So if nothing gets done for at least this class of seniors, we riot.
By the way--the more college lacrosse seasons that get cancelled, we might have to start calling this the NattyLightVirus, amirite???
Sidenote: I know this doesn't necessarily fit the mood of this blog but I'm not going to talk about the NESCAC lacrosse without throwing "Midd Kid" in the mix.
Still slaps.