The State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) announced their decision to cancel winter sports on Oct. 19 due to health and safety concerns for everyone involved. It’s no question that this announcement brought great disappointment to winter collegiate athletes and fans alike, but this decision is necessary in light of the pandemic. COVID-19 is still a threat and must be treated as such.
Even without a live audience, the risk of spreading COVID-19 amongst teams and coaches would be very high. For starters, it would be impossible in close-contact sports for players to practice social distancing while on the field. Another major risk that winter sports would impose is traveling out of town and mingling with groups outside of one’s own college community.
With the rising number of COVID-19 cases in SUNY schools, it would be precarious for SUNYAC winter sports to carry on. Take Geneseo, for example. Although our number of positive cases are minimal compared to other SUNY schools, there’s still been an increase in cases within the last few weeks, reaching 14 active cases and 29 recovered cases as of Oct. 21, according to the Geneseo COVID-19 Dashboard. Other SUNY schools had to shut down for the remainder of the fall semester due to high amounts of COVID-19 cases, such as SUNY Oneonta with over 700 cases since the beginning of the semester.
SUNYAC’s decision to cancel winter sports is commendable since it sends a message of caution to everyone. Although it’s upsetting that we won’t have winter sports to engage in this semester, it’s certainly not worth putting our teams and community at risk of contracting the virus.
It’s still unclear whether or not SUNYAC will cancel spring sports, but hopefully they take the severity of the pandemic into consideration.