LOGAN — It is rare to hear any sort of praise directed toward the NCAA, but that was exactly what happened earlier this week.
When news dropped Monday afternoon that the NCAAs Division I Council had ruled in favor of an extension to spring sports athletes period of eligibility — in the simplest terms, anyone who competes in a spring sport was awarded an extra year as a collegiate athlete — most saw the decision as the right one.
“I wish I had a crystal ball. There are so many unknowns right now.” — Utah State athletic director John Hartwell
COVID-19 prematurely ended seasons across the board and it was only fair that the student-athletes not be penalized for it.
“I applaud the NCAA for moving pretty quickly on this thing and allowing the opportunity for the student-athletes,” Utah State athletic director John Hartwell said.
The decision was not nearly as cut and dry as many have made it seem though. Correct? Sure. Warranted? Absolutely. Easy in practice? Not even a little, and that is being felt in athletic departments across the country. That includes Utah State, where questions about the unknowns of the future have been the order of each and every day following the ruling.
“We are trying to be able to quantify it, but it is so hard because of all the unknowns out there,” said Hartwell. “Everybody in society is dealing with those unknowns.”
Chief among the unknowns are financial concerns, as the NCAA left it up to the individual institutions on how they are going to manage the ruling and money isn’t exactly rolling in at the moment.
Utah State has already crunched the numbers, and if every senior — the Aggies have 30 who competed this spring — were to use their extra year of eligibility, it would cost the athletic department a little over $400,000. A department that just missed out on $950,000 after the cancellation of the men’s basketball NCAA Tournament.
And that is just the beginning of the financial question marks, with football potentially up in the air this fall — “It is the engine that drives the train from a revenue standpoint,” said Hartwell — ticket sales nonexistent at the moment, many donors’ ability to contribute being made more difficult by the day, and student enrollment in general almost guaranteed to go down.
“Every school right now, we’ve all got financial challenges, and there are questions about what this looks like going forward.” said Hartwell.
There are questions about the construction of rosters next season, with seniors who weren’t expected to be back possibly returning, plus incoming recruits, and in Utah especially, missionaries who’ve returned home prematurely as a result of the pandemic. Is it even remotely possible to accommodate them all?
Then there are questions about what the sports world will look like in general in the aftermath of COVID-19.
“When we get to the other side of this thing and try to get life somewhat back to normal, I won’t even call it normal, back to pseudo normal, what does that look like?” said Hartwell.
With so many questions, the first order of business for the Aggies since the ruling came down has been the seniors.
“Right now we have told our coaches and they have relayed that to our student-athletes, that with all the uncertainties out there surrounding COVID-19, right now we are just dealing with those seniors in those sports,” said Hartwell.
Spring coaches are currently sitting down, virtually, with each individual athlete to determine who wants to come back in 2021 and who would rather move on. That includes golfers Hayden Eckert and Chase Lansford, softball players Ryann Holmes, Erin Kuba, Riley Plogger, Allanah Alvarado and Alissa Noble, men’s and women’s tennis players Sergiu Bucur, Hannah Jones and Lucy Octave and 20 track and field athletes, too numerous to be listed here.
Some of those seniors have already decided not to take advantage of the extra year of eligibility.
“Some of them have already said no,” Hartwell said. “The vast majority of those seniors are graduating and some have told us they are going to move on.”
Of course, some of those decisions were made with the idea of a job waiting for them upon graduation. In the current economic climate those guaranteed positions may not be so guaranteed in even a week’s time.
“A lot of people haven’t talked about it, but we might have a lot of athletes who pre-COVID-19 had job offers. Are those job offers still going to be on the table?” Hartwell said.
He and the Aggies hope to have a clear understanding of which seniors will be coming back next season in a few weeks time, but that might not be feasible.
“We are trying to be able to quantify it here in the next couple of weeks, but it is so hard to pin them totally down because of all the unknowns out there,” Hartwell said.
After the seniors, the Aggies’ agenda would turn to the construction of spring rosters for 2021, particularly what to do with incoming freshmen. Many high school seniors, particularly in a sport like softball, committed because of a specific role that was offered to them, or playing time that was promised. The return of seniors could throw all of that to the wind.
“That is another component a whole lot of people have not talked about,” said Hartwell. “Especially in a sport like softball, where you’ve got offers and commitments even out there to kids who are sophomores and juniors. We have talked amongst our Mountain West competitors and I’ve talked to some of our other peers and we are all kind of wading through that to see what the ramifications there are. Not just for those (high school) seniors who’ve signed, but with sophomore and juniors who’ve committed. What domino effect happens for those people?”
Then there is the issue of missionaries, who have returned to Utah in droves. That is a dilemma that is hardly on the table at the moment, though.
“It is kind of a niche thing,” said Hartwell. “It heavily impacts BYU and us and Utah to some extent, but in the big scheme of things, it isn’t that big of a number of athletes. The NCAA has so many items on their plate right now as a result of COVID-19. Yes, that is a significant issue in our state, but relatively speaking, I don’t see there being any quick ruling or resolution to that one. We all want a ruling on that, but as of right now, and we’ve told our coaches this: Unless we’ve got roster spots or scholarship spots available for them, (returned missionaries) are kind of in limbo right now.”
The decision to afford spring athletes an additional year of eligibility was, by all the accounts, the right one. It was a decision most, Hartwell included, saw coming. But it only answers one question, and a host of others have followed in its wake.
“I wish I had a crystal ball,” Hartwell said. “There are so many unknowns right now.”