Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is changing everything. Look around and you can see empty places, masked faces and life brought to a standstill. In sports, stadiums and courts are now eerily empty. The universal ban on crowds is ravishing across sports world, including NCAA activities. Only earlier in 2020, college athletes, coaches scouts, professional clubs, and fans were bracing for a big season. Today, a future in sport, and perhaps college support, is uncertain for countless many college athletes. This is COVID-19’s era of cancellations, withdrawals, online recruitment and practice – and uncertainty.
End of College Career?
For many, “college sports,” “college careers,” and “NCAA career” are phrases, under current COVID-19, of a distant past. Having set high hopes on great sports career in professional sports, NCAA college athletes are still absorbing. For many, college sport is not just about a springboard to professional athletic world. Instead, NCAA connects hopes of self-actualization for many college students as athletes and as future model citizens. To play in Division I, II or III is less about “cool” and more about “game.” This lost sensation of a pre-COVID-19 era will be best captured when pay to write a paper on this topic.
The cheers and jeers in packed stadiums might perhaps be yet another distant memory of so recent a past.
For students practicing college sports for support, COVID-19 has presented unprecedented challenges. Setting an eye on non-sports careers, such students are in jeopardy since some colleges are considering canceling financial aid. This is a heavy blow dashing hopes long worked on. The question now is not about practicing more but about saving a college investment so easily swept away by COVID-19.
Coronavirus effect on sport is still unfolding.
Online Recruitment
NCAA has made a series of in response to COVID-19. One most stunning announcement is perhaps canceling Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Of course, not just basketball has been canceled but all college sports as well. The splash of basket tournament cancellation has, however, rippled far and deep given sports huge popularity and watchability. Unsurprisingly, online now reigns supreme. Just as in education, sport is now joining ranks to perform different activities online. Instead of scouting for practicing students in courts or playgrounds, potential future sport stars are now interviewed online. This is understandable given social distancing rules. The caveat is, however, sports are about practice. Of course, a scouter could identify some historical precedents in a student’s record. However, saying is not seeing. There are, after all, limits to online recruitment. This is, hopefully, a phase.
More Time for Education
Then again, college athletes are students. If COVID-19 has made practicing history, education is not. That is, college athletes have now so much time to study and work on future, not necessarily a future in sports. This argument is easier for non-sport career students. For minority students, however, an end to college sports is actually and end to a career for good. This is particularly applicable to African-American students hailing from modest backgrounds. For black students, college sport is not social pastime. Instead, a college career in sports is social mobility.
NCAA Extends NBA Draft Withdrawal Deadline
To retain college eligibility, NCAA has extended NBA draft withdrawal from June 3 to indefinite. This is, at face value, good news. Deeper, however, most schools are not likely to be able to retain many college athletes. More, a recent appeal court ruling has upheld a ruling that colleges continue to pay expenses for student-athletes. This is, perhaps, one of, among many, challenges COVID-19 is presenting to college sports in general. Increasingly an issue of debate among students-athletes, including on popular forums, college sport is assuming new meanings under COVID-19. Most of college students don’t have enough time for writing essays and choose to order it from Essay Kitchen professional writing service.
Notably, college and sports increasingly appear not to mix. The aspiring student, wishing to gain college support or a future in professional sports, is something of a recent past.
Online Practice
omes in line to online recruitment. Just as everything is moving online, so is online athletic practice. To respect and maintain social distancing rules, students-athletes and coaches are now communicating online to practice. Given no one could predict when COVID-19 would end, online practice appears to be here to stay. Interestingly, more and more sports organizations, including NCAA, are subscribing to an online practice model to carry on pre-COVID-19 activities. The whole scene of online practice is, admittedly, eerie. For years, live streaming has been hyped as an up-and-coming model for future sports. Today, COVID-19 has made online practice an everyday reality. Then again, as in recruiting, practice cannot go on
forever online. If anything, athletes are athletes: fresh air, at home, or in court is important for practice. This is something COVID-19 has made history – so far.
End of Season
This is an end of season, perhaps an end of chapter. The current uncertainty COVID-19 is creating in college sports is redefining college athleticism for good. As matters stand, students-athletes are still absorbing, some might be early recovering. This season is not like any other. The shots dunkers have slammed might be, as in so many cases now, part of an increasingly distant past. This is also perhaps an opportunity to consider different paths for students, coaches, clubs and parents on college sports. If anything, everyone seems to have been so certain about a solid college career, only to find COVID-19. The new social distancing rules, coupled by increasingly uncertainty about sports and college, are redefining college and sports for good. This is, put differently, not just and end of a sports season. Instead, as every student-athlete knows, current circumstances usher in an end of college for sports long season lasting for decades.
Reopening Plans and Cancellations
To make matters more bizarre, NCAA has also recently announced cancellation of remaining winter and spring championships. This makes future of college sports, at least in short run, more uncertain. The increasing challenge is now about reopening, not lockdowns. The new normal being locked down, college sports community is still considering a way out. When students choose to buy assignment UK — they get an excellent work in time.
Wrap-Up
COVID-19 is changing college sports for good. Under lockdown, students-athletes are reconsidering alternative options about college and sports. This end of season is less about college sports per se and more about ultimate end of sports at and for college. The shift to online practice and recruiting are only offering signs of what to expect. As certainty, or perhaps uncertainty, sets in, reopening college – and sports – will make a completely different sense in a COVID-19 era. The sports and college are, for one, going to be changed for good.
