‘It’s more than just playing a game.’ Local politicians raise concerns about lack of fall sports
It’s official — there will be no Penn State football season this fall.
After days of debate and conflicting reports, the Big Ten Conference decided to postpone the 2020-21 fall sports season, including all regular-season contests and Big Ten Championships and tournaments, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and concerns for player and staff safety.
This decision — along with last week’s recommendation from Gov. Tom Wolf to postpone high school and youth competitions until January — has been met with mixed reactions from Pennsylvania and Centre County officials who are concerned with the economic and social impact the postponement will have.
After college athletes and coaches voiced a desire to play this fall on social media, Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey was quick to offer his support Monday night.
“I support them in this effort, and I am confident that conferences and programs can develop protocols that will allow this to safely happen,” Toomey said.
A divided Centre County board of commissioners discussed the looming announcement Tuesday morning.
Commissioner Steve Dershem called the prospect of no fall football “devastating” for the community as well as for Penn State.
“The loss of Penn State football … impacts the ability of other Penn State sports programs to be funded, and I don’t think it can be underestimated the devastation that the loss of revenue to our community and to Penn State has on our overall community,” Dershem said. “I understand the need for all the safety. I get all that, but when you look at the human cost of this, poverty kills a bunch of people, too.
“And it’s very, very impactful that we as a community do everything we can to support our university, support our local businesses so they’re here when this pandemic is over.”
Recognizing the challenges Centre County has faced amid the pandemic, Commissioners Michael Pipe and Mark Higgins also noted the value in being able to welcome students back for in-person classes this fall.
“We’re not in the room when they’re having these conversations,” Pipe said. “There are people dribbling out information as these meetings occur … and there are reports about serious medical conditions, health conditions coming out, and one of the questions we don’t have the answer to yet is what are the long-term health complications from getting COVID-19?”
Higgins added that even if a football season were to take place, Beaver Stadium would have operated at a limited capacity.
“This is not a decision by the Centre County commissioners. This is a decision by the Big Ten,” he said. “It is entirely on them as to how they choose to move forward. Obviously, even our best-case scenario was that even if games were to be played locally, it was going to be a football stadium that was at a fraction of its usual capacity.”
Last week, Wolf recommended that there be no high school sports until January. This announcement sparked controversy across the state, prompting state Republicans Mike Reese, R-Westmoreland/Somerset, and Jesse Topper, R-Bedford/Franklin/Fulton, to introduce two pieces of legislation that would impact sports, extracurricular activities and educational opportunities for students during the upcoming 2020-21 school year.
The proposals would allow Pennsylvania school districts to make decisions about fall sports and activities on their own and give students and families the option to continue their education and extracurricular activities for an additional year to make up for the loss of competition.
House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, voiced his support for the bills during a press conference.
“This is more than just playing a game,” Benninghoff said Tuesday. “This is an opportunity for our children to excel and to show what they can do in different sports, teamwork. Oftentimes as a former coach myself and as a father, we’ve seen young people who may be shy in the classroom be able to excel on the playing field and be able to lead.”
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 5:15 PM.
