Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren says the level of uncertainty about COVID-19 and its potential effect on athletes helped shape the conference’s decision …
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren says the level of uncertainty about COVID-19 and its potential effect on athletes helped shape the conference’s decision to postpone college football and other fall sports until spring. “You look at this decision, we just believed collectively that there’s too much uncertainty at this point in time in our country to encourage our student-athletes to participate in fall sports,” Warren told Big Ten Network on Tuesday after the announcement was made. “Understand that they are not professionals. These are amateur athletes. And they deserve an opportunity to be able to participate in a healthy and safe manner.” The decision came less than one week after the Big Ten released a 10-game conference-only schedule for all 14 football programs within the conference, and just a few days after schools began fall camp late last week. According to Warren, the conference gathered more information from medical experts over the past six days, including from the conference’s task force for emerging infectious diseases, and came to the “holistic decision” to postpone fall sports. “There is too much uncertainty now for us to feel comfortable to go forward and have fall sports in the Big Ten,” Warren said. “We just need to constantly do the right thing from a medical standpoint to make sure our student-athletes are in an environment that remains both healthy and safe.” When Warren was asked to elaborate on the advice from medical experts, he again pointed to the uncertainty of the novel coronavirus and any long-term health effects it may have on student-athletes.
