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

