12 SPORTS

Reactions to a devastating day for sports

Sitting on practice field behind 
Schembechler Hall, the Michigan 
football team learned what most 
already knew: Their season — like 
those of the MAC and Mountain 
West — would have to wait. The 
Big Ten, the first Power Five 
conference to do so, postponed 
their season, with hopes of playing 
in the Spring.
They were in the middle of a 
break between practices when the 
news came down. Their meetings 
Tuesday morning went normally, 
avoiding the rumors that had 
circulated the day prior about 
season cancellation, President’s 
votes and rogue teams. The 
second part of their preseason 
schedule, practice, would start at 
3 p.m., but a text from Compliance 
Services brought them back to 
Schembechler slightly earlier. 
“I’m feeling a little conflicted 
because, you know, there’s been 
a lot of work put in and it’s a lot 
of time for us to get right over 
the summer, and it just getting 
canceled randomly –– well, not 
randomly, but getting canceled –– 
has put a toll on our team and our 
morale overall,” offensive lineman 
Trente Jones said. “Right now I’m 
just a little conflicted.”
“We’re 
pretty 
devastated, 
everyone’s 
pretty 
devastated,” 
senior defensive lineman Jess 
Speight said.
“We’re all bummed, but we’re 

taking it day by day,” junior 
quarterback Max Wittwer said. 
“There were rumors, we heard the 
MAC canceled their season and we 
didn’t think it would have any role 
to play in the decision made by the 
Big Ten. We heard all the stuff, we 
just figured that we would surpass 
them, basically.”
The players, like the rest of the 
college football world, are now left 
with questions. About eligibility, 
about when competition returns, 
about practice, about everything. 
And those feelings of devastation, 
dread and loss turned quickly into 
a grasp on what it all means. 
“Right now, we don’t know how 
eligibility is going to work,” Jones 
said. “That’s why a whole bunch of 
the seniors are kind of worried, but 
I feel like the messages have been 
clear with playing and time and 
stuff like that.
“I don’t know how it would 
work with the spring season and 
then having a fall season, or would 
we go to Spring season every year? 
That was my thoughts when I 
initially heard it.”
Michigan 
will 
continue 
to 
practice for 20 hours a week after 
getting clearance from the Big Ten, 
and ultimately finished doing so on 
Tuesday.
While Jones is worried about 
the details, it’s clear from talking 
to the players that they see this as 
simply a delay, a roadblock. That if 
the country does what it needs to, 
there’s a chance that football can 
return and that those 20 hours a 
week will prove vital.
“Any season getting canceled 

is pretty sad,” freshman defensive 
back RJ Moten said. “I mean, it just 
gives us more time to prepare for 
the season and especially the big 
games that we have here.”
But for that to happen, the 
players on Michigan know it’s 
not in their hands. That clichéd 
line “control the controllables” 
will only get them so far. The 
Wolverines 
controlled 
what 
they could, and it still got them a 
canceled season. The frustration is 
clear that what they can’t control 
will end up deciding their sport’s 
feasibility, that this is a problem 
beyond Jim Harbaugh’s office or 
the gridiron.
“I hope (we can play later), 
especially with the whole corona 
thing,” Moten said. “Everybody 
needs to know that it’s serious.”
“It’s very unfortunate about 
how this whole situation was 
handled,” Wittwer said. “I feel if 
they implemented the programs 
and protocols that we had here 
in Schembechler Hall, then this 
really wouldn’t have been an 
issue.”
The heads of Michigan players 
as they left practice weren’t held 
high, smiles didn’t reach past their 
masks and to their eyes. Carrying 
boxes of takeout, they hardly spoke 
as they went to their cars, they 
looked at their feet and pulled out 
of the parking lot quietly. All the 
work they’d put in since last fall, the 
precautions taken as they returned 
to campus, those practices and 
hashtags didn’t work. The dreams 
of a fall season died on the practice 
field behind Schembechler Hall.

BECCA MAHON/Daily
Football was postponed Tuesday right before the Wolverines’ second practice of the day, leaving many downtrodden.

KENT SCHWARTZ 
& EMMA STEIN
Summer Managing Sports Editor 
& Summer Editor in Chief

Student-athletes call 
for beginning of union 

After a day in which college 
football seemed to be on the 
brink of cancellation, the athletes 
themselves took to social media to 
express two things.
They want to play.
And they want a say in how it’s 
done.
Players from all five power 
conferences joined in posting a 
graphic outlining their wishes for 
the season late Sunday night and 
into the early hours of Monday 
morning.
“We want to play football this 
season,” it reads.
“Establish universal mandated 
health & safety procedures and 
protocols 
to 
protect 
college-
athletes against COVID-19 among 
all conferences throughout the 
NCAA.
“Give players the opportunity to 
opt out and respect their decision.
“Guarantee eligibility whether 
a player chooses to play the season 
or not.
“Use our voices to establish 
open 
communication 
& 
trust 
between players and officials; 
ultimately create a college football 
players association representative 
of all Power 5 conferences.”
Clemson quarterback Trevor 
Lawrence 
and 
Ohio 
State 
quarterback Justin Fields were 
among the high-profile players to 
share the graphic. From Michigan, 
defensive back Hunter Reynolds 

— who helped create the Big 
Ten Unity Proposal — tweeted, 
“#WeWantToPlay and not just P5 
football players. There are athletes 
in other conferences and other 
sports who put in just as much 
effort to have as safe a season as 
possible.”
Earlier on Sunday, multiple 
reports 
indicated 
the 
college 
football season could be postponed 
as early as this week. Big Ten 
commissioner 
Kevin 
Warren 
reportedly favors moving the 
season to the spring, and is said to 
have the backing of the majority of 
presidents in the conference.
Though movements like the Big 
Ten Unity Proposal have gotten 
players meetings with Warren, 
athletes themselves have been left 
out of the actual decision-making 
process — both in the Big Ten and 
in the country at large. That’s no 
surprise. It’s how college athletics 
has worked since its inception. 
And it’s why the idea of a players 
union shakes the very model on 
which the NCAA is built to its 
core.
Amateurism does not comport 
with the notion that athletes are 
employees, with all the rights that 
come with being such. With Name, 
Image and Likeness legislation 
being debated in Congress and the 
COVID-19 pandemic throwing the 
fall season into question, players 
are seizing the moment.
If they can succeed, it’s hard to 
imagine just how far-reaching the 
consequences could be.

NATALIE STEPHENS/Daily
College football players are starting to work together to achieve their goals.

ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editor

Thursday, August 13, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

