8 — Friday, March 13, 2020
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MILES MACKLIN/DAILY

THE END

Design by Jack Silberman

Give seniors an 
extra year of play
T

he unthinkable has hap-
pened. 
Thursday, when the 
NCAA announced that the men’s 
and women’s 
basketball 
tournaments 
would be 
cancelled due 
to COVID-
19, the 
college bas-
ketball world 
responded 
with shock, 
frustration, 
anger and 
just about everything in between. 
Sports fans across the country 
— myself included — will have to 
come to grips with the fact that 
one of our greatest annual tradi-
tions is no more. Losing March 
Madness won’t be easy for any-
one. 
But none of us can relate to 
what the players, especially 
seniors, are feeling. 
For many of them, the tourna-
ment was going to be the end of 
their basketball careers — a grand 
finale of sorts. Just 0.9 percent of 
women’s and 1.1 percent of men’s 
basketball players make the leap 
from college to the professional 
level. For the other 99 percent, the 
NCAA Tournament is the biggest 
sporting event they’ll ever have 
the chance to play in. To have that 
stolen from them is downright 
criminal. 
To be clear, it was absolutely 
necessary to cancel the tourna-
ment. The safety of the players 
and coaches must come first, 
and the COVID-19 has reached a 
point where half-baked efforts to 
contain it won’t work. The NCAA 
acted in the best interests of its 
athletes in this one case. 
Now, it must do it again. 
Those seniors who have been 
robbed of the opportunity of a 
lifetime deserve another shot. 
They deserve an extra year of 
eligibility. 
Yes, this would be unprec-
edented. It’s a lot to ask the NCAA 
— an organization that doesn’t 
consider being close to a sick fam-
ily member as a valid reason for 
immediate transfer eligibility — to 
just give an extra year to hun-
dreds of athletes. 
But everything about this is 
unprecedented. March Madness 
has never been cancelled. We’re in 
the middle of a global pandemic. 
Now is not the time to worry 
about what’s been done before. It’s 
time to do the right thing for these 
athletes.
The specifics would admittedly 
be complicated. With new play-
ers coming in, teams across the 
country would exceed the current 
scholarship limit of 13. The NCAA 
could expand that for one season, 
but that brings up questions of 
equity. Would it be fair to teams 
that had few or no seniors this 
year? A potential solution could be 
a mandatory redshirt rule to keep 
rosters at the same size, but the 
specifics of that itself would have 

to be ironed out. 
For Michigan, there are two 
seniors on both the women’s and 
men’s teams. The women’s team 
would certainly benefit from 
having forward Kayla Robbins 
back after she missed most of Big 
Ten play with a torn ACL, and 
there’s no doubt she’d be thrilled 
to return to her teammates for 
another year. We know her co-
captain — senior guard Akienreh 
Johnson — wants to come back, as 
the team has already petitioned 
for another year of eligibility for 
her. 
And on the men’s side, though 
there’s no guarantee guard Zavier 
Simpson and center Jon Teske 
would choose to come back for 
another season, they deserve the 
right to make that decision for 
themselves. That’s the case for 
a number of players across the 
country — Cassius Winston isn’t 
returning to Michigan State, and 
Sabrina Ionescu isn’t going back 
to Oregon. 
But I can’t speak for what play-
ers across the country would want 
or what’s best for them. 
So just ask their coaches.
“Seniors, if they want, should 
have another year,” Oklahoma 
State men’s basketball coach Mike 
Boynton told Jeff Goodman of 
Stadium. “Special permission 
on scholarship numbers for an 
unprecedented circumstance. 
Next year only.”
Mid-major schools have it 
worse. While making the tourna-
ment is an expectation for the 
Dukes and Kansases of the world, 
it’s life-changing for schools like 
East Tennessee State, whose 
men’s team had just punched its 
ticket after winning the Southern 
Conference Tournament. 
“I’m heartbroken for everyone 
associated with our program, 
especially our five seniors,” ETSU 
coach Steve Forbes told Good-
man. “These young men have 
dedicated their lives to have the 
opportunity to represent ETSU in 
the NCAA Tournament, and it’s 
been taken away from them at no 
fault of their own.
“While I wholeheartedly sup-
port this decision, I will make it 
my mission to fight for another 
year of eligibility for our five 
seniors so they have the oppor-
tunity to once again turn their 
dreams into reality.”
It’s heartbreaking across the 
board. After years of dedication, 
athletes came within inches 
of their dreams, only to have it 
snatched away at the last minute. 
Yes, COVID-19 is bigger than 
sports. It’s bigger than all of us. 
But that doesn’t make its 
smaller-level impacts any less 
important. The NCAA has a 
unique opportunity to erase just a 
little bit of the damage it’s done to 
college athletes. 
And I can’t see any reason why 
it shouldn’t. 

Brendan Roose can be reached 

at rooseb@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @BrendanRoose.

Is it wrong to care about sports?
T

hursday, New York 
City declared a state of 
emer-
gency to 
fight a global 
pandemic; 
the Dow 
dropped 10 
percent, its 
worst single-
day drop 
since the 
crash of 1987; 
millions of 
Americans 
are indefinitely hunkered 
down in self-quarantine; Don-
ald Trump said domestic travel 
could soon be curtailed; and 
colleges stopped playing sports 
for awhile.
One of those plainly doesn’t 
belong with the others, and yet 
it will be the subject of this col-
umn because, well, this is The 
Michigan Daily sports section 
— and because I’m confused as 
hell. We all are. 
The NCAA released a state-
ment Thursday afternoon 
confirming what had rapidly 
become inevitable: The NCAA 
Tournament will not happen, 
nor will the remainder of win-
ter or spring sports.
“While I understand how 
disappointing this is for all 
fans of our sports, my decision 
is based on the current under-
standing of how COVID-19 
is progressing in the United 
States,” NCAA President Mark 
Emmert wrote. “This decision 
is in the best interest of public 
health, including that of coach-
es, administrators, fans and, 
most importantly, our student-

athletes.”
The NCAA joined all the 
professional leagues (sans 
NASCAR and the PGA Tour) in 
shutting things down for now. 
Michigan athletic director 
Warde Manuel released a state-
ment shortly after Emmert’s:
“Today we took the unprec-
edented and proactive deci-
sion to suspend intercollegiate 
activities to protect the health 
and well-being of our student-
athletes, staff and commu-
nity members,” 
Manuel said. 
“This deci-
sion reached in 
collaboration 
with the Big 
Ten conference 
and campus 
leaders, was 
reached after 
thorough dis-
cussion and 
was necessary 
given the magnitude of this 
global issue. The hard work 
and dedication of our student-
athletes, coaches and staff 
is a source of inspiration for 
so many. So, too, will be our 
response as we confront this 
global pandemic.”
This, of course, really sucks.
The NCAA Tournament is 
my favorite sporting event of 
the year. I was downright giddy 
to go cover the Big Ten Tourna-
ment this weekend. But there’s 
no debating these details 
anymore. Cancel everything, 
sports being the low-hanging 
fruit. As men’s basketball coach 
Juwan Howard put it in a state-
ment: “Some things are bigger 

than basketball.”
That’s not the question 
worth considering anymore. 
There was one right answer; 
the NCAA, the Big Ten and 
Michigan — belatedly — made 
it. 
But is it wrong to bemoan 
the premature ending to the 
careers of Jon Teske and Zavier 
Simpson, the two winningest 
men’s basketball players in 
Michigan history? Is it insen-
sitive, amid economic chaos 
and worldwide 
panic, to feel 
cheated we don’t 
get to see if the 
Michigan base-
ball program 
can build on last 
year’s success? 
A year of Carol 
Hutchins’s illus-
trious career, 
her 34th, flushed 
away? What 
about Mel Pearson’s suddenly 
red-hot team, stomping its way 
into the Big Ten Tournament 
semifinals? Kim Barnes Arico 
and her short-handed, resilient 
squad? And those Michigan 
wrestlers who sacrificed every-
thing, redshirted the season, 
just to take their shot at an 
Olympic games that might no 
longer happen? 
Is it wrong right now, amid 
a world bursting at its seams, 
to care about sports? Can we 
truly compartmentalize these 
myopic misfortunes with the 
broader disaster?
Sports exist as a respite from 
the real world, and when that 
respite disappears, our daily 

lives suffer. The disappearance 
of sports, more than anything, 
will symbolize a disruption 
to structure and consistency. 
When that erodes, our morale 
will drop, our sense of collec-
tivity will slowly dissipate, our 
mental health will deteriorate. 
None of that should be dimin-
ished.
We are entering uncharted 
territory, a world in which we 
confront how deeply ingrained 
the culture of sports is in the 
ethos of this country — how 
much sports really do matter. 
I’m not sure we are completely 
prepared to discover that 
answer.
There are, to be clear, issues 
far more pressing right now — 
issues of life and death. Things 
are about to get much worse 
before they get any better. It 
appears we are entering an 
economic tailspin. Cases of 
COVID-19 are exploding by 
the day. The response at this 
point is reactive rather than 
proactive. And this country 
is still run by a narcissistic, 
incompetent human. Which is 
to say: These are truly terrify-
ing times. I am scared. And in 
the grand scheme of those wor-
ries, not being able to watch an 
NBA game on a random Tues-
day night is an inconsequential 
price to pay.
I don’t know whether it’s 
wrong to care about sports 
right now. But I sure know I’m 
going to miss them.

Marcovitch can be reached on 

Twitter @Max_Marcovitch or via 

email at maxmarco@umich.edu.

MAX

MARCOVITCH

NCAA WINTER, SPRING SEASONS CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19 OUTBREAK

Hutchins reacts to decision: ‘It’s the worst day’

In the middle of Thursday’s 
practice, 
Carol 
Hutchins’ 
phone rang. 
It was Michigan Athletic 
Director Warde Manuel. 
Right away, Hutchins knew 
the phone call wouldn’t be an 
easy one. 
She was cognizant of the 
other 
mandates 
that 
had 
trickled in across the collegiate 
landscape throughout the day 
— the PAC-12 and ACC had both 
cancelled all sporting events 
until further notice. So when 
Manuel called, Hutchins knew 
what was coming. 
Manuel’s words, a message 
relayed from NCAA President 
Mark Emmert, only confirmed 
what had grown to be the 
inevitable. Due to the COVID-
19 pandemic, all remaining 
NCAA 
winter 
and 
spring 
championships were cancelled 
— softball included. 
Her players, in an act of 
blissful ignorance, continued 
practice as Hutchins digested 
the news. It was her job to break 
it to them. The news that this 
would be their last gathering, 
that their season was over 23 
games in and at least 30 short. 
She stopped practice and 
pulled her team into their home 
dugout, symbolically a place of 
comfort and unity amidst the 
trying times. A dugout that 
Hutchins calls “her favorite 
place in the world,” a dugout 
those same players wouldn’t be 
able to convene in as one ever 
again.
It was an all-too fitting 
place to cling to whatever last 
semblance of normalcy was 
left. 
The team was ready for her. 
And so Hutchins embarked 
on what she described as the 

hardest thing she’s ever had to 
do as a coach.
“It’s just the worst day of 
every coach’s career right now, 
telling their student athletes 
that they’re done,” Hutchins 
told The Daily. “Probably the 
hardest day is the last day of 
the year and you close your last 
game. But all 36 of my last days 
have never compared to this.
“And it’s for every student 
athlete in the country. Every 
student athlete is affected, all 
the support people. Even my 
managers were crying. They’ve 
worked so hard. Everybody’s in 
this together. It’s really hard 
to put in perspective. Today’s 
a tragedy, in another day this 
will be a new normal.”
For the seniors, the news 
rung 
especially 
harrowing. 
Two days before Saturday, 
what was meant to be their 
final home opener, their days 
as collegiate athletes have been 

cut short. 
Outfielder 
Haley 
Hoogenraad, outfielder Thais 
Gonzalez, infielder Madison 
Uden and catcher Abby Skvarce 
are finished donning the maize 
and blue for Michigan softball. 
“I just hugged them and told 
them and that I was proud of 
them,” Hutchins said. “They 
were a great senior class. They 
came a long way from being 
freshmen and that’s ultimately 
how you judge people. I’m very 
proud of those four. They were 
doing a great job leading us, 
getting through our ups and 
downs. I was really proud of 
them and that’s all I can tell 
them. My heart breaks most for 
them.”
For the players, uncertainty 
lies ahead. Hutchins doesn’t 
know how much longer they 
will be on campus. No one 
knows much about anything 
in a situation so fluid and 

unparalleled. So as Thursday’s 
practice 
culminated 
and 
the 
news 
reverberated 
in 
shockwaves, 
the 
team 
did 
all they could in such an 
overwhelming moment — rely 
on each other. 
“I know my team will be 
together,” Hutchins said. “I’m 
most concerned for those kids 
right now. What they need 
more than anything is to be 
with each other. We need to be 
together, that’s what we can do 
in times of grief.”
While 
the 
situation 
is 
unprecedented, Hutchins has 
no doubt her team will handle 
it with grace. 
“Our kids are well-equipped. 
They deal with adversity all 
the time. They deal with loss, 
they deal with failure. The 
most important thing they’ve 
learned is it’s not if you fall 
down, it’s if you get up. Our kids 
will get up. They’ll be strong.”

JARED GREENSPAN
Daily Sports Writer

BRENDAN 
ROOSE
Some things 
are bigger than 
basketball.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said that Thursday was the worst day of her 36-year career with the Wolverines.

ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Senior Akienreh Johnson has potentially played the last game of her career.

