ROSEMONT, ILLINOIS – Parents of Big Ten Football Players Protest Conference Decision to Postpone … [+]
In an audacious move, the Big Ten has announced that it will resume playing football in October. The announcement comes just as “reports of new [COVID] infections have soared in the Midwest.”
The decision highlights the extreme pressure that colleges with major football programs are under to play their games and bring in revenue. The Big 10 had originally announced that its decision to postpone its football season “would not be revisited”. But other major conferences have soldiered on, as has Midwest football powerhouse Notre Dame.
In an announcement this morning titled, “The Big Ten Conference Adopts Stringent Medical Medical Protocols; Football Season to Resume October 23-24”, the conference said it “adopted significant medical protocols including daily antigen testing, enhanced cardiac screening and in enhanced data-driven approach when making decisions about practice/competition.”
The players will be tested daily, beginning September 30th. Here are the conference’s guidelines for how many positive COVID tests among players would shut down play:
“Team positivity rate (number of positive tests divided by total number of tests administered):
- Green 0-2%
- Orange 2-5%
- Red >5%
Population positivity rate (number of positive individuals divided by total population at risk):
- Green 0-3.5%
- Orange 3.5-7.5%
- Red >7.5%”
While there will be plenty of testing, the practices and games can go on even if there are a lot of positive tests. Here are the conference’s guidelines for halting games and practices:
Decisions to alter or halt practice and competition will be based on the following scenarios:
- Green/Green and Green/Orange: Team continues with normal practice and competition.
- Orange/Orange and Orange/Red: Team must proceed with caution and enhance COVID-19 prevention (alter practice and meeting schedule, consider viability of continuing with scheduled competition).
- Red/Red: Team must stop regular practice and competition for a minimum of seven days and reassess metrics until improved.
This means that even if testing reveals a team positivity rate of up to 5% and a population positivity rate of over 7.5% the practices and games can continue as long as the team “enhance[s] COVID-19 prevention”, such as altering the practice and meeting schedule.
This is a risky decision. Football players already are at high risk of brain injury, but football also strains the players’ hearts. Because COVID-19 may put even young healthy people at greater risk of cardiac inflammation and other heart problems, the decision to play football as COVID cases are rising in the Midwest puts the players at risk.
To lower the risk, the conference is implementing the following protocols:
“All COVID-19 positive student-athletes will have to undergo comprehensive cardiac testing to include labs and biomarkers, ECG, Echocardiogram and a Cardiac MRI. Following cardiac evaluation, student-athletes must receive clearance from a cardiologist designated by the university for the primary purpose of cardiac clearance for COVID-19 positive student-athletes. The earliest a student-athlete can return to game competition is 21 days following a COVID-19 positive diagnosis.”
Unlike some of the other “power” conferences, the Big 10 is also severely limiting attendance at the games. Only family members of the team will be allowed in the Stadium. Other conferences are allowing spectators into the stadiums at 20 percent capacity.
College football has always put unpaid young men in harm’s way for entertainment and profit. Resuming football as COVID is spiking in the Midwest represents another major step in that direction.
