11
Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SPORTS
Hintons, parents support fall shift
On Thursday afternoon, just one
day after he went viral for saying,
“There’s no expert view right now
that I’m aware of that sports is
going to make (COVID-19) worse,”
Jim Harbaugh sat down for a Zoom
call with all of his players’ parents.
It was far away from the
spotlight, in an environment that
better suits the Michigan coach.
No quotes from that Zoom will
gain virality or even be posted on
the internet. But to the parents
of Wolverines’ players, this is the
Harbaugh that matters.
This Harbaugh was answering a
list of their questions — 22 of them
to be precise, all focusing on how
Michigan was dealing with college
football’s return to play amid the
COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a list borne out of concern
back in late May, when the NCAA
announced it would allow athletes
to return to campus for voluntary
workouts. At the time, something
didn’t sit right with Chris and Mya
Hinton, the parents of Michigan
defensive lineman Chris Hinton Jr.
As they looked at the guidelines
put in place by all 130 Football Bowl
Subdivision programs and 10 FBS
conferences, they realized there
was no consistency. “No guidance,
there was no protocol that schools
had to adhere to,” Chris Sr. told The
Daily. “They just gave the date and
said, ‘Have at it.’ ”
So the Hintons started reaching
out to parents of other college
football players and realized they
weren’t alone in their concern.
After getting feedback from some
of those parents, they founded the
Facebook group, College Football
Parents 24/7. Just over a month
later, it has 1,558 members and
counting.
Before the Hintons air their
grievances, they want you to know
something. They are rabid college
football fans. Their other son, Myles,
is a freshman offensive lineman
at Stanford. Chris Sr. starred at
Northwestern in the 1980s before
his All-Pro NFL career. So they
want a college football season more
than just about anyone.
“We just want it to be done right
and safely,” Chris said. “We want
our sons to be safe, as any other
parent would want.”
At Michigan, that’s a feeling
that
Harbaugh
has
cultivated
throughout the past five months.
Even though the NCAA is
permitting full practices beginning
Monday, Michigan’s players will
continue training in groups of eight,
as they have since returning to
campus. The groups are consistent
day-to-day and are designed to
partner players with their closest
friends so as to minimize contact
between groups out of training.
Of course, getting to a season
would require the full team to
practice
together
as
normal.
To ensure that next step can be
executed safety, Michigan has
implemented
a
robust
testing
system,
as
well
as
exploring
innovative solutions such as bands
that players can wear to help with
contact tracing and avoid a large-
scale breakout.
Perhaps most encouraging to
the Hintons, though, is how these
decisions came about. While the
program comes from Michigan’s
own medical experts, Harbaugh
has valued parents’ opinions from
the beginning, sending out a survey
before players returned to campus
so that the team could implement
the protocols parents wanted to see.
“It was refreshing because from
day one, we feel like Michigan has
done a good job with dealing with
COVID the best they can with the
knowledge that’s available,” Mya
said. “There’s so much unknown
with the science, but they’re doing
everything they can.”
It’s a stark contrast, Mya says,
from some other schools across the
country, particularly in the SEC.
One parent in College Football
Parents 24/7 has a son playing at
Notre Dame — a school with strict
protocols in place — and expressed
concern when she found out that
Arkansas,
the
Fighting
Irish’s
scheduled Week 2 opponent, was
only testing if players showed
symptoms.
In order to avoid situations such
as that one, many parents have
lobbied for teams to exclusively play
conference games, a measure that
enables more consistent protocols
to be in place between opponents.
Earlier this week, the Big Ten
became the first conference to heed
that advice.
“The
idea
that
now,
it’s
conference-only play, you don’t
have to worry about a school that’s
upholding the same standards
that you are,” Chris said. “And
that was one of the things that we
talked about early was the lack of
consistency from school to school,
to know that, say, Wisconsin is
doing the same thing that you’re
doing.”
But while the Hintons support
the measures Michigan and the Big
Ten have put in place, they — and
other parents — remain concerned,
with cases on the rise across the
country.
“It’s scary to think that football
would be ramping it up as cases are
going up,” Chris said. “Typically an
epidemiologist would say cases are
spiking so we need to distance more,
and we’re doing the opposite.”
With the scheduled start of
football season less than two
months away, that’s a daunting
thought no matter what guidelines
are in place.
NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
Coach Jim Harbaugh is keeping parents informed on the status of a fall season.
THEO MACKIE
Managing Sports Editor
Warren emphasizes shift
towards a flexible fall
On Thursday afternoon, Big
Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren
made one thing clear: nothing is set
in stone.
The press conference followed
a statement by the Big Ten saying
fall sports would be restricted to a
conference-only schedule.
“One of the things that was most
important to us was the flexibility
of scheduling all the operations,”
Warren said in an interview on the
Big Ten Network. “It’s much easier
if we’re just working with our Big
Ten institutions from a scheduling
standpoint,
from
a
traveling
standpoint, all of those issues that
go into having our student athletes
compete.”
He stressed that all decisions
have been made with the safety
and wellbeing of student athletes at
the forefront.
With the national situation
constantly evolving, Warren and
his staff believe canceling non-
conference competition will give
athletes “the best chance to play,”
but canceling the fall sports season
altogether remains on the table.
Meaning,
the
announcement
should be looked at more as an ‘if’
the season happens than a ‘when.’
Flexibility
was
stressed
as
a major factor in the Big Ten’s
decisions. With the change, the
conference will retain the ability
to schedule games as they see
fit, dictate travel and implement
uniform
testing
policies.
The
conference
will
extend
that
flexibility to student athletes,
honoring
the
scholarships
of
any athlete who decides not to
participate in the season due to
COVID-19.
The
announcement
is
the
product
of
many
hours
of
communication
between
the
conferences’ coaches, presidents,
chancellors
and
conference
administrators. Warren said a new
Big Ten football is in the works, but
fans shouldn’t hold their breath.
Testing procedures have to be
finalized, networks contacted and
medical professionals consulted
with.
It’s one thing to revamp an
entire fall season from an office.
It’s another matter entirely to
orchestrate
that
change
over
Zoom.
Warren said he’s been in daily
contact with athletic directors
and has talked to football coaches
weekly. They hoped to get the
decision out as soon as possible in
an effort to remain transparent.
“When you sit in a seat like this,
you always have to make sure that
you are always preparing for the
what-if scenarios, many of which
may never come to fruition,”
Warren said. “They may just end
up in a binder or a desk drawer or
saved on a computer somewhere.”
With the number of COVID-
19 cases on the rise, the “what-if”
scenarios are coming into play.
Regardless of what the coming
weeks or months bring, the Big Ten
is clear in its priorities.
“We’ll keep putting our student-
athletes at the top of our list,”
Warren said. “And we’ll always
make sure we look out for them and
make sure they are keeping safe.”
MILES MACKLIN/Daily
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is preaching flexibility for fall sports.
LANE KIZZIAH
Daily Sports Editor