Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren Clarifies League’s Position in Letter

Written by: TJ Inman (@TJHoosierHuddle)

The Big Ten and PAC-12 both announced the cancellation of fall sports, including football, last week. The leagues went about the announcements very differently and after several days of criticism and consternation directed towards the Big Ten as well as a petition by Big Ten athletes, parents and fans and vocal opposition from community members, Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren finally offered some clarification. The first-year leader of the conference released a letter that I will share in its entirety, followed by my thoughts:

I write on this occasion to share with you additional information regarding the Big Ten Conference’s decision to postpone the 2020-21 fall sports season. We thoroughly understand and deeply value what sports mean to our student-athletes, their families, our coaches and our fans. The vote by the Big Ten Council of Presidents and Chancellors (COP/C) was overwhelmingly in support of postponing fall sports and will not be revisited. The decision was thorough and deliberative, and based on sound feedback, guidance and advice from medical experts. Despite the decision to postpone fall sports, we continue our work to find a path forward that creates a healthy and safe environment for all Big Ten student-athletes to compete in the sports they love in a manner that helps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and protects both student-athletes and the surrounding communities.

As you are well aware, we are facing a complicated global pandemic with the SARS-CoV-2 virus discovered in November 2019. The first medically confirmed cases did not appear in the United States until January 2020. Over the course of the past seven months, the U.S. has recorded more than 5.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 resulting in more than 170,000 deaths, with more than 22 million confirmed cases and 780,000 lives lost around the world.

We understand the disappointment and questions surrounding the timing of our decision to postpone fall sports, especially in light of releasing a football schedule only six days prior to that decision. From the beginning, we consistently communicated our commitment to cautiously proceed one day at a time with the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes at the center of our decision-making process. That is why we took simultaneous paths in releasing the football schedule, while also diligently monitoring the spread of the virus, testing, and medical concerns as student-athletes were transitioning to full-contact practice.

While several factors contributed to the decision to postpone the 2020-21 fall sports season, at the core of our decision was the knowledge that there was too much medical uncertainty and too many unknown health risks regarding SARS-CoV-2 infection and its impact on our student-athletes.

Listed below are the primary factors that led to the Big Ten COP/C decision:
-Transmission rates continue to rise at an alarming rate with little indication from medical experts that our campuses, communities or country could gain control of the spread of the virus prior to the start of competition.
-As our teams were ramping up for more intense practices, many of our medical staffs did not think the interventions we had planned would be adequate to decrease the potential spread even with very regular testing.
-As the general student body comes back to campus, spread to student-athletes could reintroduce infection into our athletics community.
-There is simply too much we do not know about the virus, recovery from infection, and longer-term effects. While the data on cardiomyopathy is preliminary and incomplete, the uncertain risk was unacceptable at this time.
-Concerns surrounding contact tracing still exist, including the inability to social distance in contact sports pursuant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. While risk mitigation processes (e.g., physical distancing, face coverings, proper hygiene, etc.) can be implemented across campus for the student body population, it became clear those processes could not be fully implemented in contact sports.
-With the start of full-contact practices and competitions, it became increasingly clear that contact tracing and quarantining would risk frequent and significant disruptions to the practice and competition calendar.
-Accurate and widely available rapid testing may help mitigate those concerns, but access to accurate tests is currently limited.
-Significant concerns also exist regarding the testing supply chain, generally, for many of our institutions.
-Financial considerations did not influence the COP/C decision, as the postponement will have enormous adverse financial implications. We understand the passion of the many student-athletes and their families who were disappointed by the decision, but also know there are many who have a great deal of concern and anxiety regarding the pandemic.

Moving forward, we will continue to build upon the framework that our medical experts have developed over the past five months while we take the opportunity to learn more about the virus and its effects. As we expand upon a plan to allow our student-athletes to compete as soon as it is safe to do so, we will keep our focus on creating protocols and standards set forth and established by our medical advisors that are responsive to the medical concerns evaluated by our COP/C.

To that end, the Big Ten Conference has assembled a Return to Competition Task Force consisting of members from the COP/C, sports medicine and university medical personnel, Athletic Directors, Head Coaches, Faculty Athletic Representatives and Senior Women Administrators to plan for the return of fall sports competition as soon as possible. In evaluating winter/spring models, we will explore many factors including the number of football games that can reasonably be played from a health perspective in a full calendar year while maintaining a premier competitive experience for our student-athletes culminating in a Big Ten Championship. The Big Ten Conference will continue to collect feedback from student-athletes, families, and other constituents and remains in active discussions with its television partners regarding all future plans.

We have tremendous appreciation and understanding regarding what participation in sports means to our student-athletes, their families, our campus communities and our fans. We will continue to make the best decisions possible for the health, safety and wellness of our student-athletes. We appreciate the passion of the Big Ten community and will harness that energy towards providing the best possible experience for all Big Ten student-athletes.


Kevin Warren
Commissioner
Big Ten Conference

I will begin by acknowledging that this is an incredibly, if not impossible, position for any commissioner to be in. Kevin Warren is a first-year leader and that certainly adds another degree or three of difficulty. That being said, the Big Ten and Kevin Warren have not covered themselves in glory thus far with their handling of this crisis. After very little public communication, the league introduced a ten-game conference only schedule that was covered excitedly on the Big Ten Network and spoken of glowingly by Commissioner Warren. A few days later, news leaked that the university presidents had held a vote and the conference would be cancelling fall sports in 2020. Rumors about the vote and the impending decision by the conference flew around for the next 48 hours before the conference had Kevin Warren announce the cancellation with justification or reasoning. The commissioner then dodged questions appropriately posed to him by Dave Revsine on the Big Ten Network and the league has been silent since. Individual members have spoken out against the decision and some have made toothless threats to play elsewhere but this is the first time the Big Ten has explained their reasons for cancelling.

The rising transmission rates in several Big Ten states and around the country are mostly indisputable. I also completely understand the other points that were laid out by the league and the reasons given as to why the conference shutdown. My first issue is one of mismanagement. Why were these reasons not articulated last week? I think including this with the original cancellation would have allayed much of the anger and questioning we have seen in the past several days. The second issue is one of hypocrisy. If the above reasons are truly believed by the Big Ten presidents and leaders, why do many of the same issues not apply to the general student population and why are nearly all Big Ten institutions still operating with students on campus and in classrooms?