NAIA Colleges Issue Return to Sports Guidelines
Mates,
For those unfamiliar, the NAIA is something like the NCAA for smaller colleges. NAIA schools can give scholarships and in various sports have some names you'd remember that made it in the pros. In hoops, Dennis Rodman, Rick Mahorn and Scottie Pippen come to mind. In football, Walter Payton years ago and Damon 'Snacks' Harrison more recently. Overall not a huge number but a great way for kids to continue to play the sports they love and still get an education.
Anyway, earlier today the NAIA issued some guidelines on their plans for the fall sports seasons. Among the bullet points are:
1. August 15th is the first authorized date for practices, though less formal conditioning can start at any time.
2. Football can commence when half of the member institutions are authorized by their institutions to play. Football will require 4 weeks off practice and the earliest games would be 9/12
3. Competitions have been reduced:
- Cross Country: 7 meets, down from 8
- Football: 9 games, down from 11
- Men’s and Women’s Soccer: 14 games, down from 18
- Women’s Volleyball: 22 dates, down from 28
4. They are still planning on having championships and winter sports have not been addressed yet, but are at this point going to go as scheduled.
Obviously huge caveats with so much being fluid, but you have to think this is done with at least some input and congruity with what the NCAA might be thinking.
Link to the release: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Fall-Sports-Update.html?soid=1101658699681&aid=pD0IVaLuH2s
Food for thought and discussion.
XM
Interesting. I could see the MHSAA going in a similar route. As a high school football coach, I am hopeful but not optimistic about a football season. I think some fall sports are more likely to happen, but football is one of (if not, THE) worst sport for a contagious virus.
as an outside sport i think, with precautions, it can be played. like you i am 'hopeful but not optimistic', but i guess time will tell.
Not to sound doom and gloom, but I have spoke to our AD a lot. Some questions that have come up: what happens if one of our players tests positive, do we shut down for 2 weeks? If so, what happens to our opponents for those two weeks? Same questions for if our upcoming opponent has a player test positive. Do we skip that game?
I don't think most high schools have the means to test as often as would be necessary to have a season go on normally. I think that inevitably there will be more positive test if schools open (which it seems like most are trending toward planning face to face), and I have no idea what the reaction will be when we start getting those positive tests, because I don't believe we'll go through the whole shutdown and close everything again.
I'm not comfortable with the amount of testing they are talking about with regard to high school and college players. From what I understand, the swab testing is a really invasive, uncomfortable experience and to conduct 3, 4, 5 tests per week on these kids seems pretty brutal. For high school kids in particular I am not sure that is something I could get on board with. To me, the "right time" for non-professional sports to resume would be when they don't feel like they have to test, that much or at all, in order for the kids to play safely. Whether that is achieved via a vaccine, the availability of therapeutics for the at-risk population, data that indicates that the virus simply is not that deadly, whatever it is. I don't think that we should have kids getting swabbed all up in their nasal-brain multiple times a week to play a sport. Just wait. People can live without sports for a while.
you are right jon, people can most definitely live without sports for a while. and we have had about a 4 month shutdown now. however, the young ones only have a handful of eligible years for their sports, high school seniors trying to get recruited to schools of interest for instance don't get another senior year. and given that the impact of the virus seems minimal at most on that younger age group, why restrict them? everybody by now knows the risks for that group but of the schools will reinforce that. let the kids and families choose.
Yeah, you're right, that is the right perspective. Ultimately the kids and the families of the kids can make their own decisions about it. Trust me, I am not advocating for no sports. If my opinion meant anything the prevailing perspective would be "play ball!" Taking my youngest son to high school football games is literally my favorite thing in the world. I just want it to be for the kids and not at the expense of the kids. I think if they are going to have high school sports, test the kids once a week, not like 4 times per week as I know they are discussing in college. A middle school friend of my oldest son just had to get tested and from what I understand it can be a bit traumatic.
Your last point is hitting a little too close to home today. We just learned my 3 year old daughter may have potentially been exposed last weekend to someone who is sick and awaiting test results right now. My wife wants to get her tested... the idea of someone sticking a test deep into my toddler's nose isn't very appealing. Fingers crossed the sick individual gets a negative test result.
If the person does have Covid, you could just quarantine with your daughter for a couple of weeks as opposed to getting her tested if that is possible for you. The possibility of her having serious symptoms is less than her getting struck by lightning in the winter and there isn't really any "early intervention" that could prevent it even if you did find out she was positive. If the person tests positive you are probably going to be advised to quarantine anyway even if your daughter tests negative and get her tested again in two weeks. At least that is what I understand is happening with testing. And it isn't like you are going to quarantine away from your daughter if she is positive. All in all I am not sure what the point is with testing in that situation. You are going to have to do the same thing regardless of what the test says.
Good luck, sorry about your predicament.
Agreed.. we'll likely be stuck at home either way. We were supposed to have both sets of grandparents in over the holiday weekend, that's the reasoning for possibly getting her tested. But like I said... I'd hate to see her go through a traumatic testing procedure.
son #2 got tested last month with one of those wands that go way up into the sinus cavity. it wasn't pleasant, but it also wasn't traumatic. more like the subject of humor afterwards.
That is good to know. I was told otherwise by somebody but that somebody tends to be a bit dramatic about everything so perhaps I was misinformed.
I know its unpopular..but the choices you make for you and your kids in this case can adversely impact others..students, faculty, family members...as well as team mates and opponents.
I imagine its going to feel really different to many if and when a student or faculty member or coach gets really sick...I can see a case where a team has a lot of guys change their minds mid season if a team mate, coach or a player on a recent opposing team gets really ill.
Its why I haven't seen a single scientist suggest that football is remotely sensible at this time or likely in the fall.
Wrestling is THE worst sport for a contagious virus but football has to be a close second.
Sorry, but the NAIA will have to clear this with Surgeon General Utah first.
you just need some more cyber finger wagging and scolding. that'll teach you.
On a related note, Sens. Booker and Blumenthal are introducing a bill prohibiting colleges from making athletes sign COVID waivers.
https://twitter.com/JonSolomonAspen/status/1277788175642001408?s=19
Nice photo of the horseshoe/toiletbowl linked to that article.
I wish I could share in the optimism, but with cases hitting all time highs nearly every day, I just don't see how college football will be played this fall.
We haven't done enough to get the virus under control, and we don't seem to be willing to do it at this point. I would love to be proven wrong, but I fear it will take another 120k dead Americans for us to get serious about controlling this like like other countries have.
Found this on Twitter regarding the Texas spike. One medical executive's thoughts.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1277773122301804546?s=19
He's a managing partner (and a lawyer, not a MD) of a chain of urgent care facilities. A business which has been losing money because people are afraid to go to the doctor.
I don't trust opinions from people with a direct financial interest in downplaying the pandemic.
Texas Medical Center in Houston is out of ICU beds. Abbott ordered bars to be closed and scaled back restaurant capacity limits. The state is clocking 4-6k new infections every day.
But sure, random healthcare executive says everything is fine.
I've also found this extended statement from Houston Methodist CEO, Marc BOOM(what a name). He has a similar outlook. Wonder what his financial skin in the game is.
This Houston ER dr seems to have a different take:
DARK: Yeah. I would say that when a patient needs to be admitted to the hospital that you find that it's hard to find a bed for them. And looking around even other hospitals to try to transfer patients, there is no space available. Literally, I've seen patients that have been in the ERs waiting for over 24 hours trying to find a place for them, a bed for them, that has isolation capacity to handle COVID. And that just doesn't happen. And as the numbers will show you, the bed occupancy in and around the Texas Medical Center has started to grow exponentially over the past couple of weeks.
MARTIN: The heads of four hospitals in the Texas Medical Center, where you're located, all said yesterday that the medical system can handle this surge. Do you think that's true? Does that reflect what you're seeing?
DARK: I mean, I don't know what they're looking at at their level from overall systems level. But I can tell you what I see on the ground level with the patients that are in front of my eyes. And I know they're not moving out of the ER to the floors. And that's one of the biggest concerns that we have. One of the things that my colleagues in New York had experienced was once you fill up your ICUs, once you fill up your floor beds, the next place and the only place for patients to be is in the emergency departments. And everything that needs to happen for them from life to death is going to happen in the ER.
Here is another quote from Boom
“We appear to be nearing the tipping point,” Dr. Marc Boom, head of the Houston Methodist hospital system, wrote in an email to employees Friday. “Should the number of new cases grow too rapidly, it will eventually challenge our ability to treat both COVID-19 and non-COVID 19 patients."
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/23/texas-coronavirus-hospitalizations-icu-houston/
FWIW - that article is from 6/23/2020, and if he wrote that email to employees Friday, that means the email would have been sent, at the latest, on 6/19/2020.
So .... that was at least ten days ago that they were "near the tipping point."
And today --- 6/29/2020 --- we're still not AT that tipping point.
--------------------
It's not your fault .... but it's getting a bit tiring.
For all of April, May and June, there's invariably some expert or article or internet sage saying the same thing. We're a week away from hospital overload. We're nearing the precipice of hospital overload. We're nearing the tipping point of hospital overload. We're right on the edge of hospital overload.
But for all of April, May and June (it is true that in late March, we had legit issues in NYC, NOLA and Detroit) --- we never never never ever get there. Not ever once, not in one part of America.
That's part of the reason that people are tuning out the warnings. These experts, articles or internet sages need to be right at least once.
I understand the folk with a sentiment of "where's the wolf? This wolf never shows up, thus I'm going to do my thing."
Interesting how dead bodies being stacked in refrigerated trucks that had to be brought in merely gets a mention in parentheses while you talk about how that exact thing (that totally happened in NYC) never happened.
My phrase "April, May and June" was meant to refer to that not happening during those 3 months.
This was the middle of April in Prince Georges County, MD
Both Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly and MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Clinton had to send patients to other hospitals when their own critical care units filled, representatives said Tuesday. The two hospitals, along with Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham and Fort Washington Medical Center, are rapidly adding beds by converting space inside their facilities and adding tents outside, officials said. [[Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.]] They said the number of patients in need of critical care is unprecedented. “Prince George’s County is the epicenter of the state,” said Joseph Wright, interim chief executive of University of Maryland Capital Region Health, which oversees the hospital in Cheverly. “We have had to activate a very aggressive surge plan.” The Cheverly facility began sending patients to other hospitals in the University of Maryland Medical System after seeing a “dramatic spike” in patients who needed critical care over the weekend, Wright said.
As more cases are confirmed the death rate tumbles. The virus is weaker. So really it doesn't matter if more people are testing positive when most are not showing symptoms.
The linked daily update from the Texas Medical Center is not consistent with either your narrative or with the narrative that Nittany Fan is suggesting either.
https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates/tmc-daily-new-covid-19-hospitalizations/
1. You can see that as cases are increasing, so ate hospitalizations and patients in the ICU. I’m pretty sure that people being admitted to the hospital and sent to the ICU are in fact exhibiting symptoms.
2. TMC is hovering around full capacity for their ICU. While they have an ability to expand, the first step they take is to postpone elective surgeries. They are doing that today.
3. You can look at the historical data and see that the rise in hospitalizations started the week of 5/18.
Unless you think TMC is lying about this data, the above is all fact. Now lets look at Governor Abbott’s response:
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/06/25/texas-elective-surgeries-coronavirus-greg-abbott/
Tuesday June 23 - hospital capacity is abundant
Wednesday June 24 - capacity issues may necessitate a local strategy
Thursday June 25 - stopping elective procedures and pausing moving forward on further reopening steps
So in three days he goes from no problem, to rationing health care. Also, he lets it get so bad that he has to ration healthcare, but he takes no pro-active steps to slow down the spread (e.g. allows same level of activity that caused him to have to ration health care).
Houston itself was marginally more pro-active, requiring masks on Jen 22nd and finally on Friday June 26, Abbott became proactive, shutting bars again.
All of this, factual, now my opinion:
Are hospitals in Houston at the breaking point? No. Are they operating at a point where other healthcare is being rationed because of Covid, clearly yes. Does it make sense to wait for merely days before that rationing of health care had to happen before ordering people to be subjected to the relatively minor inconvenience of wearing a mask? I’d argue no. Much stricter mask requirements certainly would have slowed the spread. Does it make sense to ration health care before rationing the ability to go to a bar? (Not buy alcohol mind you, just the experience of going to a bar). Once again, I’d argue, no.
People living in the fantasy world that “it doesn’t matter, because most are showing no symptoms” and the hospitals are fine, it’s just people crying wolf, are the reason that we aren’t taking common sense steps in a timely way so that we don’t have to ration health care.
Pretty sure elective surgeries don't go to the ICU unless something goes wrong.
Pretty sure one of my links stated that 80-90% capacity is what ICUs normally experience. Assuming all people in the ICU are dying of covid is a little hasty (if so, where are the hundreds of deaths that would come with that? Nationwide deaths are down from this time last week. Complaining about rising cases without addressing testing increases is dishonest)
Pretty sure previously empty hospitals started getting back to normal sometime around May
Pretty sure you glazed over Nittany's exposure of your old BOOM quote.
"Elective surgery" is not some benign procedure. Many lifesaving surgeries are "elective" because they do not HAVE to be done right now, but must be done in due time to save that person. A heart by-pass surgery can be elective if that person is not under a heart attack right now. A cancer surgery can be elective because it can be scheduled. There are plenty of elective surgery patients in ICU.
Pretty sure elective surgeries don't go to the ICU unless something goes wrong.
For multiple reasons, I’m pretty sure you are misunderstanding about intensive care units:
1. TMC clearly explains that the way they are addressing being at close to 100% capacity is by cancelling procedures. Wouldn’t be very effective if they did not
2. Certainly for procedures like heart valve replacement, it is standard procedure to send someone to the ICU
Pretty sure one of my links stated that 80-90% capacity is what ICUs normally experience. Assuming all people in the ICU are dying of covid is a little hasty (if so, where are the hundreds of deaths that would come with that? Nationwide deaths are down from this time last week. Complaining about rising cases without addressing testing increases is dishonest)
Positive that the link I provided says that TMC is at 97% and is using measures like cancelling elective surgery to stay below 100%, so not sure how your 80% to 90% is relevant. 97% is clearly a point that both the hospital center and the governor thought extreme measures needed to be taken
‘Complaining about rising cases without addressing testing increases is dishonest)‘ - with specific regards to this ridiculous comment, my whole post was about hospital utilization. Ignoring the fact that hospital utilization is increasing in many places as cases increase and rather suggesting it is all because of increased testing is what is dishonest.
Pretty sure previously empty hospitals started getting back to normal sometime around May
Unfortunately it is now the end of June and in parts of Texas and Arizona, hospitals are not normal.
Pretty sure you glazed over Nittany's exposure of your old BOOM quote. Not feeling particularly exposed. Boom said one thing externally, another thing internally. The timing discrepancy would only matter if growth in hospital admissions was going down. Sine it’s not, quote still seems applicable. It would be a bit like a coach telling his team that he’d made a decision about a starting qb, then telling the public the battle was ongoing. Which would you believe? Also notice that you didn’t bring up the ER doc quote Guess it didn’t fit your narrative?
double posted so just putting something else here because it's funny.
Funny NAIA story that has nothing to do with the topic.
When my brother was a student at Grand Valley State, he had a part time job working for the SID. GVSU played in the same conference as Saginaw Valley State College, before it was SVSU.
Well, both schools applied for membership in the NCAA the same year. GVSU was accepted and SVSC wasn't. So when SVSC came to GVSU for a football game the end zones were painted with block letters NCAA just to rub it in.
The problem is, most of the medical community screamed from the start that this was the most deadly disease you'll ever encounter (I know this is hyperbole) and it is to be feared like nothing ever before. Stay inside, do not talk, touch, or see others. If you do, our hospitals will surely overcrowd and millions of people will die. So they built temp facilities, etc.
Then......guess what? It was all way overblown, temp facilities weren't needed, CDC, and others started changing their tune on what restrictions were important and a majority of people decided we were ready to move on with life. Not including those that still wear masks while they drive in their own car.....alone. They will always believe.
So now....more talk of hospitals being overcrowded, you better be careful of second wave, wear a mask, or your grandparents will die. When you miss so badly the first time, it makes people pretty skeptical the next time.
Fauci should have read the book about the boy that cried wolf.....
How dumb do you have to be to not realize that the steps we took to slow down the spread is what made the situation better? And the fact that when you roll back those steps before the pandemic is controlled, you risk getting an uncontrollable spread?
Certainly helped. No doubt about that. But when you build a 1000 bed facility and use 38 of those beds, skepticism sets in when you miss that badly.