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