Well, here we are going into November, and COVID-19 is still taking over all of our lives. More importantly, it is taking away UMass Boston sports. Not a day goes by where us students don’t miss watching our school’s sporting events. But today, I thought to myself: Why can’t there be sports for the Little East Conference?
Obviously, safety comes first and COVID-19 has been affecting a lot of people around the country and the world, but I argue that if the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and several Division I sports conferences can pull it off, why can’t the LEC?
Chances are, due to the fact that the LEC is Division III and many athletes would be far away from their families, the idea of a bubble is unlikely to be an option. A bubble in college sports would be relatively unreasonable, considering you would be forcing students to isolate from their families, and it would be tough to be a student while constantly being surrounded by sports. Therefore, the idea of a bubble would likely be out of the question for the LEC.
The next option would be to follow the footsteps of college sports, the NFL, and the MLB, and just play without fans. Colleges like UMass Boston have health services that can provide students and athletes with COVID-19 tests. Each team in the LEC could have all of their players get tested weekly, and as long as there are no positive tests, players can practice and play their games as long as there are no fans. As long as practice facilities and playing fields remain sanitized at all times, there is no reason games can’t be played.
No fans means that there will be no parents who can watch their child play in person, which might make some family members upset. However, this is ultimately about the players. What some of these schools need to understand is that some of these players need to play. Some of these younger players need to play because they need to prove that they belong in a higher division. Wasting a full season could hurt their chances at potentially becoming a Division I athlete.
For the families who want to see their child play, each team can have their games recorded and posted online for families to watch live since they can’t be there. Ultimately, everybody has to make compromises for this to work, but the importance of sports for some of these student-athletes is too great for the LEC to go another full semester without letting anybody play.
The spring semester is just about three months away so the LEC still has time to make a plan to reboot sports if they so desired. In my honest opinion, based on the fact that COVID-19 is beginning to get a little worse as of late in New England, I think that they will scrap the spring sports season as well. But who knows, there is still plenty of time between now and the spring semester. Maybe some positive news on a vaccine could come up, or maybe the LEC can make a plan to resume sports. For now, all we can do is speculate and hope that we can salvage some sort of a season for the spring semester.