NJCAA Sports move to Spring 2021

https://twitter.com/NJCAA/status/1281332892078092290?s=09
This may affect University evaluation and recruitment of juco players.

Here we gooo!!!

the sky is literally falling.

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We think about kids and coaches.

Other people are losing money too. I am not just referring to the Aramarks of the world, I am referring to the regular folks selling hot dogs and beer and the like.

Some folks count on those jobs.

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I am seriously concerned about the murder rate, mental health rates, divorce rates and everything else skyrocketing if we don’t get football.

Buckle up! It’s going to be a long fall.

Not ignoring all of the negative implications of having football.

But this is getting closer and closer.

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One sport that absolutely shouldn’t move is fall golf for men and women. Possibly there are others. Golf is playing at all levels this summer with the LPGA Tour starting in another week while professional womans golf has been going at the lower professional tours for awhile now along with the PGA Tour, Amateur events around the country, and junior golf at all levels.

Possibly cross country is another no brainer fall sport. Soccer proably is less risky than football, but being more of team sport would be a candidate for the spring. Swimming is probably a tweener from a risk stand point and volleyball is probably a tweener sport also.

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The council recommended the move, it has not been adopted yet.

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Travel is the biggest issues for these, fans don’t matter much anyway. Would need to keep them regional so they can bus everything. No reason for soccer or volleyball teams to be hanging out in airports and packing commercial flights.

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https://twitter.com/NJCAA/status/1282781909551058949?s=09

The most recent plan of action shifts all close-contact fall sports to the spring semester. These sports include football, men’s and women’s soccer, and court volleyball. The NJCAA cross country championships for all three divisions and half marathon championships will remain as their originally scheduled dates in the fall as well as Division III women’s tennis.

All winter sports competition will begin in January with a majority of championship seasons moved from March to April. These sports include men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling, and swimming and diving. Men’s and women’s bowling and men’s and women’s indoor track and field will be held at the beginning of March.

Spring sports competition remains intact with minor adjustments to dates. These sports include baseball, softball, beach volleyball, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s lacrosse, track and field, and men’s and women’s tennis.

Well, now its not just a recommendation.

I don’t think Cross Country is a no-brainer. Any sport where you wind up breathing heavily is going to wind up spraying droplets dramatically farther. Professional track teams are doing their meets remotely and/or just doing intrasquad competition; I think it’s best that schools attempt to follow that model.

Yeah, cross country is probably the easiest sport to transfer it between athletes with how many are at a meet all bunched up and breathing hard. Not to mention spitting and snot rockets. Extensive testing of cross country athletes would be needed for sure. So many schools are involved so it can be one school who wasn’t testing spreading it to 5-10 others.

Certainly not a cross country expert. But they also need to be a bit creative during these times. Why can’t they reduce the field of their meets for example. Have staggerd start times.

Golf has gone to staggered start times versus shot guns to reduce pre-tourney crowds on the range, in club houses, to much smaller fields. There won’t be individuals playing in the fall, just the top 5. No flag pole touching, no rakes in traps, 3somes vs 4somes, etc. The rules and processes for COVID golf are 2 pages long normally. Its been carried out successfully across the world this summer at all levels.

Can’t same type of thinking be applied to other sports? Certainly golf can’t be the only one?

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The problem with staggered starts is that it is a race. You can split them up some, but you can’t do very small groups or you wont have the person crossing the finish first as the winner. They will need to figure out a good way to do it, then they can probably widen the start and course some. Smaller meets will unfortunately be coming regardless as multiple universities have dropped cross country and I am sure many more will cut down the travel budget substantially.

The easier part is you will only have like 8-10 athletes travelling. There should be many options for regional races and you don’t have many meets anyway in a season. Time is a factor for cross country though since those athletes will be competing in track too. If we had outdoor track championships this year, NAU was a favorite to win the team title with just distance guys because of how stacked they were in the 5k/10k. So if cross country gets pushed back, indoor track and outdoor track should too.

Why isn’t ESPN reporting this?

It’s not a big money maker for ESPN.

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I have never been to a cross country meet ever, so my knowledge of how the sport is executed is low.

Although it is a race, why can’t they stagger the start times with the best times winning, or is there a lot of on course strategy that comes into play (like a cyclist race) versus just a flat out race with the best time?

Tennis should be a sport that they should execute, but it is a spring sport anyway. I would think T&F should work under a COVID model if it was a fall sport, same with baseball and softball if they were fall sports.

Yes, there is and it would be dramatically changed if it was just a time trial. Its also a hard sport to predict since the course changes in distance and terrain. A guy that sucks in a 10k flat race could be one of the best in a 4 mile race with hills so putting him in a 2nd or 3rd tier start group would ruin his race. Of course the championships are standard distance, but for sure with those you don’t want to split runners into too many groups since there is very little time difference between most of them.

It can be done, but changes things quite a bit. Track for instance, in the 1500/steeplechase you will have some teammates be “rabbits” to keep the pace up in prelims to make sure that race can get time qualifiers. But the good thing in track is you have the final with everybody at the same time. The 5k and 10k is just one race, no prelims, because of the distance just like cross country. The big difference of course track having 24 runners in the finals compared to 250+ in cross country since it is a team sport too.

OK - thanks for the explanation. I am under the mindset to be creative to have events occur. Just looking for ways for sports to occur. Golf has changed, but only slightly, and it can be argued that scores are slightly higher when they can’t pull the flag or balls rolls into a non-raked trap into uneven sand. But it is better than not playing.

I went golfing a week ago and had a ball roll over the hole because the foam they put in the cup (so you don’t have to stick your whole hand in I assume) was floating at green level because of water in there. I of course counted it.

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The one complaint in competitive junior and amateur golf this summer is if the pin is leaning towards your putt and blocks your putt from going in. Currently, you aren’t allowed to touch the pin with your hand or even your club. During non-COVID times you can adjust the pin to lean away from your putt’s entry to the cup when leaving the pin in the cup. Or you can just remove the pin.