Kevin Warren: 'We May Not Have Sports in the Fall'
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren rang the warning bell on Friday, saying during the interview that college sports still may not happen this fall.
He told the Big Ten Network that the coronavirus pandemic could wipe out the entire sports calendar.
"One thing we have to realize that this is not a fait accompli that we’re gonna have sports in the fall," Warren said. "We may not have sports in the fall. We may not have a college football season in the Big Ten."
On Thursday, the Big Ten became the first major conference to eliminate all non-conference competition this fall. The decision was made so the Big Ten "will have the greatest flexibility to adjust its own operations throughout the season and make quick decisions in real-time based on the most current evolving medical advice and the fluid nature of the pandemic," according to a statement released by the conference.
The Big Ten chose to announce its decision Thursday after a detailed conversations with university chancellors and presidents, athletic directors and head football coaches. Administrators from the other Power 5 conferences were upset that the Big Ten jumped the gun on the rest of them in making a decision.
"This allows us to be able to just take another step in this entire process," Warren said. "This is a complicated time, complicated world that we’re living in with the COVID-19 pandemic, and so what we’re doing is relying on the expert advice of our medical advisors. We have our Big Ten emerging infectious disease committee, and also all of our other Big Ten doctors and trainers.
"And so we made a vow early on that first and foremost, we would put the health and safety and wellness of our student athletes at the center of all of our decisions. So we felt that this was an appropriate time to make this announcement.”
Here's what else Warren had to say:
— Conference only games
"It’s much easier if we’re just working with our Big Ten institutions from a scheduling standpoint, from a traveling standpoint, all of those issues that go into having our student athletes compete," Warren said. "Because otherwise, when you start working outside your conference, you put yourself in a position where there are enough issues that we’re dealing with already, but then you add on top of it the issues of travel and just the logistics associated with it.
"Dealing with this pandemic, not understanding how COVID-19 is moving and moving in our society, some days are better than the others, and we just felt by making sure that we kept our scheduling, our games, our competition in the Big Ten family would allow us the flexibility to get us in a better position to possibly play and that’s where we wanna be."
— Honoring students' wishes
"Any Big Ten student athletes who decide not to participate in student athletics based upon COVID-19, we’re honoring their scholarship 100%," Warren said. "So their status on the team will not be impacted at all in a negative manner. They have the flexibility and we just want to make sure that we do everything we possibly can.
Now, Warren says, the conference's attention will turn to finalizing the schedules for fall sports. ESPN reported Thursday that football will likely move to a 10-game conference schedule; teams currently have nine conference games scheduled in 2020.
