Elon punts on fall sports, joins hope for spring seasons

Same for men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, and men’s and women’s cross country, a sweeping postponement of Elon’s fall sports lineup to the spring due to concerns about conducting seasons amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The verdict was reached by way of “an emotional, difficult decision” for athletics director Dave Blank and school leaders, including president Connie Book.

“It’s difficult because you have to do the right thing,” Blank said Monday, “but it’s emotional because you know in their hearts the athletes want to play, there’s just no doubt about that.

“But you have to take that emotion aside and make the difficult decision, and you do that with your campus. So this was not an athletic director veto of any kind. This was doing it together with the university and what’s best for our students, our student-athletes, and our community. And it all has to fit together at all times.”

Nine of the 13 conferences in the FCS, the classification which makes up the lower level of Division I college football, have pulled out of the fall during the last month, a domino effect created by COVID-19 that hit critical mass late last week and caved in the prospect of a playoff structure.

The FCS on Friday dipped below the threshold recently mandated by the NCAA for sponsoring a fall championship, stipulating a postseason format would require 50 percent of playoff-eligible teams to participate in a regular season. Blank has said since mid-July the FCS playoffs would be Elon’s guide in forging ahead with trying to put together an independent football schedule for the fall.

On Monday afternoon, he spoke with the Times-News from Schar Center, while assisting with Elon’s mandatory health check-in process for faculty, staff and students returning to campus. Fall semester classes start Aug. 19.

“I think it’s the right thing and it’s well-timed with the campus,” Blank said of pulling the plug on fall sports. “I also wanted to make sure we made a decision before we got started with any formal practices for our teams. We wanted to have a clear picture for our athletes, so that they could settle into the semester and concentrate on their academics and things like that.”

Elon and Colonial Athletic Association cohorts College of Charleston, James Madison and UNC Wilmington were trying to proceed with fall seasons in soccer, volleyball and cross country — often referred to as non-revenue sports or Olympic sports — after the league suspended fall sports last month.

The CAA presented teams in those sports with a flexible scheduling model geared toward navigating the burdens of the pandemic, and the league would’ve conducted championships had paths to the postseason been attained. But Elon, College of Charleston, James Madison and UNCW all called off fall sports Monday, the announcements released within minutes of each other.

“It was a little bit coordinated,” Blank said, “because we all were talking and knew we were coming down to the same kind of decision. We felt like it was a good thing to do for the conference, but it was really kind of ironic that we all made the decision near the same time. We just didn’t want our programs to start practices if we didn’t think we were going to play.”

In football, James Madison had been Elon’s only conference partner moving forward with attempting to assemble an independent fall schedule after the CAA suspended football.

Then the Dukes, a national power on the FCS level, dropped out Friday, another of the considerable dominoes to fall across the FCS landscape. That seemed to signal Elon’s hope for football this fall as all but inevitable.

“Our administration has been very supportive and transparent throughout the process,” Elon football coach Tony Trisciani said Monday, “and we have made every effort to prepare for a fall season while following the protocols and monitoring the situation.

“At the end of the day, this is what’s best for our student-athletes. We’re hopeful to be able to play a football season in the spring. For the student-athletes at Elon and around the country who had some reservations about playing in the fall, I would hope that we make progress managing the virus and we can play an uninterrupted season where everyone’s comfortable playing in the spring.”

Nine of the 13 conferences in the FCS have set their sights on the spring after either calling off football for the fall altogether or choosing not to play league schedules. The Missouri Valley Football Conference, home to eight-time FCS champion North Dakota State, has said it won’t have a league schedule this fall, but will permit its schools to play up to three non-conference games.

Elon’s CAA conference mates Albany, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Richmond, Stony Brook, Towson, Villanova and William & Mary have been out for the fall since the league suspended football.

The CAA has said those teams could explore the possibility of conducting a competitive football season in the spring, and now Elon and James Madison have entered the mix, rounding out the pursuit for a spring season.

Trisciani said Monday that he sensed a certain amount of relief from his Elon players, given the growing doubt looming over the fate of college football in the fall.

“The uncertainty was real hard on them,” Trisciani said. “But they’ve been very good from a day-to-day standpoint, as far as working hard, trying to get better, focusing on player development, and keeping our team safe.”

This article originally appeared on Times-News: Elon punts on fall sports, joins hope for spring seasons