Every now and then something happens to make it clear that a university is not the athletic department. This is one of those. As long as the athletic teams bills are paid by the university, including damages from lawsuits, the university has to make the overriding key decisions.
In addition, the Athletic department has been run without any major input or obligation to its players beyond providing them the ability to attend classes without paying what others students have to pay and getting some free meal service at a training table. In most matters, the Athletic department through its employees is in complete charge of the rules, financial and otherwise, surrounding the activity.
But now...
1. No one knows yet of the long term impact of contracting the disease, but it seems very clear how it is transmitted from one person to another. Playing football, for example, amplifies the possibility of transmitting the disease from one payer to another. You're in each other faces and blowing the droplet carried bug from one person to another hour after hour. The chances are much grater than in a classroom where you can wear a mask and people are not yelling directly into your face. The possibility of spreading the disease is greater the more of this kind of activity takes place. So playing football increases the risk of getting the disease if someone else on your team or the team you are playing has it. Testing results take days, so an asymptomatic player can spread the disease among other players with test results coming in only a day or two after the contact has been made and no one even knows it is happening.
2. At this point research from a number of different places is producing results that suggest that there are long term and in some places probably chronic ill health that affects the patient, both heart and lung, regardless of the patient's age or physical condition. These studies have been well publicized and the heads of the universities cannot say that they are unaware of them. While not yet definitive, they are suggestive enough at this point that they cannot be ignored.
3. A good plaintiff's lawyer can assemble a lawsuit that can get by a motion to dismiss the case just on the basis of these two points if he or she gets one or more sick kids who played football in this environment. Grounds for a class action lawsuit probably exists. And even even if just one football player died from contracting this stuff, Katie bar the door. Waivers of liability between the mammoth university and a wet behind the ears 19 year old kid wouldn't protect the university from suit. The university's insurance carrier, if it had any, probably would resist honoring any claims the university might make against it when it knew the risks and took them anyway.
4. Even at just the Athletic department level, the virus complications have now generated a much more organized effort than before on the part of the players to get a larger share of the money and control involved in their programs, and to have more of a say in how that activity is conducted.The Athletic Departments can see losing some control and perhaps having to deal in the future with a union-like organization instead of operating as a dictatorship as it traditionally has within the university organization's limitations. They are just not ready to deal with that yet.
In addition, the Athletic department has been run without any major input or obligation to its players beyond providing them the ability to attend classes without paying what others students have to pay and getting some free meal service at a training table. In most matters, the Athletic department through its employees is in complete charge of the rules, financial and otherwise, surrounding the activity.
But now...
1. No one knows yet of the long term impact of contracting the disease, but it seems very clear how it is transmitted from one person to another. Playing football, for example, amplifies the possibility of transmitting the disease from one payer to another. You're in each other faces and blowing the droplet carried bug from one person to another hour after hour. The chances are much grater than in a classroom where you can wear a mask and people are not yelling directly into your face. The possibility of spreading the disease is greater the more of this kind of activity takes place. So playing football increases the risk of getting the disease if someone else on your team or the team you are playing has it. Testing results take days, so an asymptomatic player can spread the disease among other players with test results coming in only a day or two after the contact has been made and no one even knows it is happening.
2. At this point research from a number of different places is producing results that suggest that there are long term and in some places probably chronic ill health that affects the patient, both heart and lung, regardless of the patient's age or physical condition. These studies have been well publicized and the heads of the universities cannot say that they are unaware of them. While not yet definitive, they are suggestive enough at this point that they cannot be ignored.
3. A good plaintiff's lawyer can assemble a lawsuit that can get by a motion to dismiss the case just on the basis of these two points if he or she gets one or more sick kids who played football in this environment. Grounds for a class action lawsuit probably exists. And even even if just one football player died from contracting this stuff, Katie bar the door. Waivers of liability between the mammoth university and a wet behind the ears 19 year old kid wouldn't protect the university from suit. The university's insurance carrier, if it had any, probably would resist honoring any claims the university might make against it when it knew the risks and took them anyway.
4. Even at just the Athletic department level, the virus complications have now generated a much more organized effort than before on the part of the players to get a larger share of the money and control involved in their programs, and to have more of a say in how that activity is conducted.The Athletic Departments can see losing some control and perhaps having to deal in the future with a union-like organization instead of operating as a dictatorship as it traditionally has within the university organization's limitations. They are just not ready to deal with that yet.