Liberty League joins local conferences, suspends fall sports

For a little while, it seemed that Ithaca College would find a way to have a fall sports season during the COVID-19 pandemic. The original plan was to delay the start of the fall season until Sept. 26.

Then, in the two weeks following the announcement, neighboring athletic conferences The Ivy League, Empire 8 and SUNY Athletic Conference all canceled their respective fall seasons as the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic has failed to make significant improvements.

The Liberty League, which is home to Ithaca athletics, followed suit and announced that it will suspend all athletics through Dec. 31. Unlike Tompkins Cortland Community College, which announced that fall sports will take place in the spring, no concrete plans were announced beyond suspension. There’s also no word on the status of the winter season.

Prior to the cancellation, Ithaca had what was going to be an intricate system in place designed by Team Physician Dr. Andy Getzin and Head Athletic Trainer Mike Matheny, as described by Athletic Director Susan Bassett.

“Our student-athletes would require two weeks of quarantine at home, tests upon arrival, two weeks of working independently in basically fitness training, then going into small groups of 10 or fewer students and working up to groups of 30 or so,” Bassett said. “We were well on our way. We had been working within our own return-to-campus task force. We ran some of the preliminary thoughts by the Tompkins County Health Department. We were just working our process.”

As mentioned earlier, the Liberty League was a late holdout when it came to cancellation. There was legitimate confidence that the conference would be able to pull off a season in which the 10 schools only play one another and avoid travel outside the central New York bubble they are all located within.

Bassett added that the spike of coronavirus cases around America earlier this month was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

After the cancellation of fall sports from the Empire 8 and SUNYAC, Bassett felt it would have been “irresponsible to move forward” and made her recommendation to Ithaca College President Shirley Collado to suspend all athletic competition.

Teams will still be able to get together and practice, as Bassett explained to Ithaca’s student-athletes in a Zoom meeting prior to the Liberty League’s announcement. The main message in that meeting was that the pandemic was persisting beyond their expectations.

“In April, when we started this path of thinking about returning to sports, what they thought the trajectory would be and what it actually is, is diametrically opposed,” Bassett said. “We have smart students, and they understand. They’ve been watching the same news that we’re all watching and following the league cancellations. … When the Ivy League canceled, I knew that this was probably the direction we were heading.”

At the high school level in New York, if athletics are unable to begin in September, then all seasons will be condensed within the first six months of 2021. Bassett said she could envision Ithaca doing something similar.

“We’ll keep all options open,” Bassett said. “I think at this point, we want to just continue to be process-oriented. We’ll do that with regard to our winter sports and our spring sports. If the NCAA cancels the fall championships and finds a way to move it to the spring, we obviously owe it to ourselves and our student-athletes to pursue that if it’s possible.”

As positive of an outcome that would be, one in which all athletes wouldn’t miss out on a season, it would be a very difficult plan to pull off.

“It would be challenging to manage all that activity in one condensed season with a lot of shared facilities and staff who have multiple responsibilities,” Bassett said. “I’m thinking about our athletic training staff and our sports medicine team. It won’t be easy. We would, of course, keep that option open. We’ll see how this all evolves, and I’ll remain as hopeful as I can possibly be.”

By the time Ithaca College takes part in any athletic competition, it will be after an incredibly lengthy layoff. Whichever sport it is that gets to make the campus’ first appearance post-pandemic, Bassett said it will feel like the Super Bowl. For now, there are 13 athletic teams at Ithaca College that do not know what their status is for 2021.