Fears Imagined with Morehouse Cancelling Fall Sports, UConn Fallout
Even as most of the college football world is preparing for a season in 2020, the lingering uneasiness of a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has brought caution to many who still fear the season could be dashed.
For at least one college football team, that fear has become a reality with the announcement that Morehouse, an HBCU located in Atlanta, has canceled their football season, and all fall sports alongside.
The announcement came on Friday with little fanfare and limited media coverage overall since the Marron Tigers aren't a needle mover in college football.
However, the move made by school president David A. Thomas, opens the door for others, perhaps even Power Five members to make similar decisions.
Morehouse was not the first to cancel their seasons, as Bowdoin College had previously announced the cancelation of both fall and winter sports.
While there is no guarantee anyone else will follow suit, it would be naive to think this will be the only one.
The possibility exists that some of the Power Five's could follow, the more likely scenario would be other small programs that might not have the financial wherewithal to afford the cost of dealing with the negatives should their teams become inundated with the virus.
Another athletic program, UConn, also announced this week that because of financial issues, they are forced to disband four sports teams because of budget issues caused in part by the coronavirus pandemic.
The sports impacted at UConn include men's cross country, men's swimming, and diving, men's tennis and women's rowing teams.
At least part of the Huskies issues stems from an underperforming football program that, according to an article by Sport's Illustrated's Pat Forde, stems from "failures" brought about by bad decisions on the University and athletics department.
"Benedict and his predecessors, and everyone in a decison-making capacity at UConn, has perpetrated breathtaking administrative malpractice when it comes to football. They have screwed up in every way imaginable for damn near a decade. They have made terrible hires, agreed to preposterous contracts and frittered away what little cachet UConn football ever had."
Regardless of who should bear the weight of failure in Stoors, the fact that the university is forced to dum sports teams at this time, and the cancellation of fall spots at others prove the landscape of college athletics is changing and not in a right way.
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