With the suspension of all sports these days, it’s required some re-adjusting of plans for fans, players, coaches and even administrators.
Oh, this first weekend will be sort of an unscheduled break for everybody involved. Things had gotten kinda hectic the last few weeks with so much going on that this weekend is, literally, a forced vacation.
Everybody can deal with that. The test will come a week or two down the road.
No, there will be no political discussions here. That’s for other folks to cuss and discuss. Others can talking about who’s to blame or what SHOULD have been done, but we’ll keep it to sports.
There is some question about the knee-jerk reaction and cancelling spring sports’ championship games that could have been re-evaluated at a later date. Pro sports have still had championships after strikes and those sports are still rolling along years later.
If there was a failing in that area, it was in the messaging. Leave it to the NCAA to mess up doing what is probably the proper and correct thing for present events by over-reaching.
Maybe the biggest message in this is the complete lack of respect from the kangaroo court in Indianapolis that tries to rule over all of college sports. Maybe some believe they have the interest of anyone by themselves at heart but you’d have a hard time convincing anybody.
Back in the days before today’s technological ability to reach anyone literally in a few seconds a quick decision to do something like suddenly bring the world of sports to a screeching halt could be understood with the issues going on now.
Not these days.
If the NCAA doesn’t have the ability to do a mass-email to every member institution within seconds, then they are remarkably behind the curve. Everybody else has a list.
Based on the comments from Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek this week, he was completely blindsided. It wasn’t the decision as much as the fact they gave their institutions zero preparation time.
For an organization that repeatedly proves it is hopelessly — even hilariously — incompetent at times, they have no shown they are even worse at crunch time.
A few years ago I said on a regional radio show the NCAA couldn’t manage recess at playschool without messing it up and they have done absolutely nothing to change my view.
Again, this is not a disagreement in the result but in the complete and utter lack of respect for the people absolutely required for them to exist. It’s amazing that an organization that allows people who know very little about sports to have the votes controlling that aspect of our world is mind-boggling.
For guys who are actually incredibly brilliant people (we’re talking the university presidents, by the way), they frequently prove they are dumb as a box of hammers at times concerning sports.
When Yurachek talked to the media Friday he still appeared astonished he found out after everybody else that wasn’t on an airplane when the decision was made by the NCAA on Thursday.
“Unless somebody well above me has some information I don’t have, I really thought that was jumping the gun,” he said of them cancelling events scheduled for June, well over 60 days away.
Yurachek didn’t have a problem with the way SEC commissioner Greg Sankey handled things, but then again he consulted the athletics directors constantly and appeared to make small, cautious, steps.
“We could have taken a step back as a membership and re-evaluated what we do with our spring sports,” Yurachek said Friday. “The same decision may have been reached. I don’t think that decision needed to be reached yesterday.”
What this likely could do is re-invigorate the talk about the lack of need for the NCAA with the largest universities in the country.
Are they really doing what’s best for college athletics? Former coach and athletics director Jackie Sherrill has been telling me for about eight years now there will be a break-away from the NCAA by the top 64 or so schools.
It’s ridiculous for them to be voting on the same issues as the smaller schools anyway.
There has been some back-door whispering about this for a number of years. The NCAA just gave the folks who would like to see them disappear the ammunition.
While it’s hidden a little right now by the current health concerns, as always it will come down to money.
And it will be interesting to see how much money the NCAA just cost it’s members if their decision regarding spring championships was too quick.
We’ll see because that’s going to become an issue sooner rather than later.
