It has now been over a week since the Coronavirus pandemic brought an end to all college sporting events. Not much has changed since, except for all spring sports now being cancelled instead of being indefinitely postponed.
This led to a very interesting question: ‘What would happen to all the athletes who were affected by this cancellation?’ Would they be given an extra year of eligibility or would this year still count?
On March 16, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced their plans for student-athletes.
In a press release, the NAIA said “In an effort to provide relief, no spring sport student-athlete will be charged a season of competition. Any spring sport student-athlete who was enrolled full-time in 2020 will be awarded two additional semester terms of attendance or the equivalent.”
In layman’s terms, this year will not count against any Spring student-athlete’s eligibility. Every student-athlete, whether they are a freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior, will not have this year count. This brings up a very interesting conundrum going into next spring’s season. That is over a year away, but it’s worth talking about.
Next spring, coaches will be faced with tough decisions. Their rosters will remain the same as this year, but they are also adding in seniors from high school. Some of these high school seniors are very talented, which means that they will have athletic scholarships.
However, these seniors that are sticking around for another year may also have athletic scholarships.
There’s only a limited amount of scholarships a university can give out.
Some of these incoming freshmen may not receive scholarships that they would have gotten if we were not in the midst of a global pandemic. Saint Xavier has not stated what they will do in regards to scholarships, so this fear may be overblown, but if these fifth-year student-athletes can keep their scholarships, then there may be a problem.
Winter athletes were heavily impacted as well. Their seasons were already canceled, but they will not get another year of eligibility. This is because their seasons were already almost fully completed, with only the playoffs left for most sports.
With all collegiate athletics canceled until at least the fall, there remains plenty of questions for SXU student-athletes. But, at least for now, they know that this year will not count against them. They know that they will have another year of eligibility and this year will be spent not playing, but improving.
Hopefully, this leads to athletes across every sport in Saint Xavier focusing on improving their game, whether they do it on their own or in a virtual practice with their teammates over the internet.