College Basketball Seniors Should Be SI Sportsperson of the Year

Upperclassmen such as NC State's Markell Johnson, C.J. Bryce and Aislinn Konig should be honored for sacrificing their final shot at the NCAA tournament in the interest of public health

Geoff Burke/USAToday sports

It's only March and eventually, or should I say hopefully, sports in America will start up again. But regardless of what happens on the field of play between now and December, the competition for Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year should already be over.

The award, which has gone to some of the most iconic personalities of our time from Muhammad Ali to Tiger Woods to the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, is presented annually to "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement."

No one this year, or perhaps any other year, embodies that criteria better than college basketball seniors -- a group of athletes that had their final season of competition taken away from them through no fault of their own as a precaution to help stop the spread of the global coronavirus crisis.

We're not just talking about those upperclassmen who missed out on a chance at cutting down nets at their preempted conference tournaments or perhaps even on the first Monday in April following the national championship game in Atlanta.

It's NC State's Markell Johnson, C.J. Bryce, Aislinn Koning and every other random senior deprived of their "One Shining Moment," however long it might have lasted. It's grad transfers such as Pat Andree and Danny Dixon, who were deprived of their one-and-only chance at experiencing the madness of March.

These are young men and women who sacrificed what could have been the most important moment of their careers, without being given an option, in the name of public health.

"The senior class, everyone, was pretty upset about it," Konig said of the moment she and her Wolfpack teammates learned that their season had been cut short. "But ultimately, we understand why those decisions had to be made and despite the fact that we were looking forward (to the NCAA tournament), you have to make sure everbody's healthy and safe."

That's an attitude that "embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement" better than any performance on the field ever could.