Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1276571
cated, as they were, on the assumption that there would be games at some point, that it was just the circumstances under which they were to be played that needed to be sorted out. Everybody wanted games. Administrators wanted them because football pays the bills. Coaches, staff and media wanted them because without games, there's not as much demand for coaches, staff and media. Fans wanted them because they'd been deprived of live sports for months and had run out of things to binge watch on Netflix. And players like Wade and his teammates wanted them most of all – partly because they serve as a pathway to a far more lucrative level of football, but also because it's a fun and rewarding sport. But the desire to play was not enough to ensure that there would be a fall sea- son. Even the overwhelming economic imperative to play was not sufficient to keep everything on track. If players and staff couldn't be safeguarded, none of those other considerations mattered. PSU's athletic department worked in conjunction with Penn State Health throughout the spring and early summer to develop a plan that would allow ath- letes to resume their preparations for a fall season. Part of that plan involved educating players about mask wearing and hand washing and all the other pre- cautions that have been shown to di- minish the spread of the coronavirus. And while that was happening, athletic staffers were working to make the uni- versity's training facilities safer, an ef- fort that included moving weight equipment from the Lasch Building to the much more spacious Holuba Hall. Those measures gave everyone at Penn State hope that the university would at least be able to create the preconditions that any sort of fall athletic season would require. Said Barbour, "When it was time to bring teams back, we were ready." It helped, too, that Penn State was hours away from the state's viral hot spots in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, a big university in a small town sur- rounded by a buffer zone of farms and forests. For a lot of the athletes who were returning, it was probably a safer envi- ronment than their hometowns. So return they did. In June, Penn State began welcoming back athletes from the football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer and women's volleyball teams. Players were tested for COVID-19 upon their arrival and were retested a few weeks later. The athletes' return to campus went about as well as could be expected under the circum- stances. As of July 29, the university had conducted 466 tests on student-ath- letes. Of the 400 tests that had been an- alyzed to that point, 392 had come back negative. The situation could, of course, get worse, given that social distancing does not come naturally to college students. As Barbour noted, "Our students oper- ate in an age group and in a culture where it's all about connections and en- gagement, and we're asking them to stop doing that now in the way that they've traditionally done it." What's more, the return to competi- tion is predicated on more than just the performance of this school or that school. In order for there to be a college football season in 2020, schools across the country have to find ways of keeping their people safe. That's where, earlier this summer, things went south in the most literal sense of the word. Clemson, Alabama, North Carolina and Miami (Fla.) among others all suffered out- breaks – perhaps not surprising, given that the COVID numbers were starting to tick back up throughout the country, particularly the Sunbelt states. The Big Ten responded by announcing in July that its teams would play confer- ence-only schedules this fall. It was a sensible move. Why risk playing oppo- nents that might not be taking the same precautions you're taking? By only play- ing each other, Big Ten teams could at least have some assurance that the team on the opposite sideline was adhering to all the protocols that they had put in place for their own players. But by scrapping its nonconference games, the league was also performing a controlled burn on the first in a series of firewalls protecting the season. Penn State could still play a satisfying and consequential season if it didn't face Kent State on opening day, but what if it didn't play Ohio State or Michigan or Michigan State? That's the portion of the season that the second firewall was protecting, and as of early August, it, too, was under threat. If the second firewall burns down in the coming weeks, the only recourse will likely be to try again in the winter or spring. Barbour said she's open to doing that if necessary but called it "a last re- sort." "One of the biggest challenges, proba- bly the biggest one in my mind, is the proximity to next season," she said. "That [can be] overcome if perhaps we're willing to have a shortened season. Something is better than nothing, and that may not be a problem at all. But probably the biggest concern is the wear and tear on the bodies of our students, and the proximity of a spring season to a fall season." If the season does get pushed to the spring, Penn State's team could look very different than it does right now. Would likely first-round draftees Micah Parsons and Pat Freiermuth opt to play a season so close to the NFL Draft? What about players like Journey Brown and Shaka Toney, who have probably done enough to ensure themselves a spot in the draft but who were no doubt looking to the 2020 season as a way to burnish their credentials? The same economic imperative that compels ad- ministrators to push for a season is likely to compel some of the game's best players to sit it out if it takes place in the spring of 2021. Wade could conceivably fall into that latter group, as well, but he went into the summer months focused on making the most of his final season at Penn State. "I want to maximize this year," he said. "I want to maximize everything." Here's hoping he gets that chance. ■