Student athletes who were affected by the cancelation have been granted an additional semester of eligibility
On March 12, National College Athletic Association (NCAA) President Mark Emmert canceled all remaining spring and winter NCAA Championships. Nine Lewis & Clark sports teams had their championships canceled.
“This decision is based on the evolving COVID-19 public health threat, our ability to ensure the events do not contribute to spread of the pandemic and the impracticality of hosting such events at any time during this academic year given ongoing decisions by other entities,” said the NCAA website.
The NCAA cancellation means that all LC practices, competitions and workouts will be discontinued until next semester. For many student-athletes this will mean losing community, stress relievers and work they have spent all on and off-season training for.
The NCAA Division III Administrative Committee has also issued a blanket statement granting an additional season or semester of eligibility for student-athletes participating in spring sports. Head Men’s and Women’s Crew Coach Sam Taylor commented on this policy.
“The thing to remember would be that students would have to come back to school for another year and pay for that,” Taylor said. “For anyone who wants to take a few extra credits or pursue a graduate degree those options are still available. Anyone who this would be their fourth year would have the option to come back for one more year.”
For many seniors this cancellation of the season will mark the end of their collegiate athletic career.
“We are trying to do an end of season ‘thank you’ to our seniors as well as give out awards that would have been given at the end of the year,” Taylor said. “The whole athletics worlds is going through this together, every college coach I know, every college athlete I know has had their season canceled and it is something that is challenging, but there is a lesson to be learned that if it all comes to a stop at least we had the time we had and we can appreciate that for what it was.”
Track & Field distance runner Kara Wood ’21 was sick for her last race and had been looking forward to her next meet.
“In all honesty, I do not think that it has totally hit yet that my season is done,” Wood said. “At this point it just seems surreal. I was just Facetiming a friend and saying that it felt like we were all thrown into a bad teen novel about the apocalypse.”
With the season ending so abruptly many teams have moved up their end of season get-togethers.
“Our team had a special event for seniors because we did not get to have a senior night,” Wood said. “It was this big thing it was live streamed as just a chance for the seniors to get that last final step and finish line in.”
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