OaktownBear said:
wifeisafurd said:
71Bear said:
Bobodeluxe said:
The sentiment here seems to be that, this year, the games don't matter and they must be played.
Correct. The only reason they are being played is to enable the schools to collect media payments.
that is the only economic reason the schools are doing it. Some schools actually may feel an obligation to their players.
The players have varying objectives, and do seem to want to play. There are several senior players at Cal for example, that are developing their NFL resume. There are younger players developing their skills under game conditions w/o losing eligibility. There are players who want to go bowls (to the extent they will happen) or national champions (this is outside the Pac schools). Many players that just like playing football.
Not buying it. Do the same schools actually feel an obligation to their students to have in person classes, labs, internships, practical experience for career, graduate school, etc? How is it any different?
Actually the schools do feel a an obligation to provide that. In fact, almost all Pac schools and most large colleges in the country are, using local protocols, having labs, research opportunities, small grad school classes or unique classes that require personal attendance, and other experiences that can't be replaced by on-line instruction, and many schools are simply having classes.
The most ardent supporter of not having a Pac football season was the Furd President. He asked: is it appropriate given the activities that are available to other groups of people at Stanford (which also caused such a delay there is no room to reschedule games)?
He said this: .
We are in the gradual process of resuming, with the appropriate precautions, the in-person activities that people came to Stanford to do with a priority extended to those activities that cannot be done online. For example, after the initial period of shutdown in March due to COVID-19, we soon resumed elective surgeries in our hospitals. We placed a priority on bringing back research activities that cannot be done online, and indeed many of the people who are physically on campus each day are involved in research. We allowed graduate students to start the fall quarter in residence here on campus, where their research is. Santa Clara County offered new latitude in several areas, first by allowing essential visitors in student residences, and then as you saw earlier this week, introducing the concept of "households" (i.e., social pods) in student housing and allowing outdoor classes to begin moving indoors subject to density limits, topics on which we will be sharing more soon. We are exploring additional ways of providing more near-term flexibility for activities that have been constrained by the pandemic, and we also continue planning with the goal of bringing cohorts of undergraduates back to campus for the winter quarter.
Athletics is clearly an activity that cannot be done online. We made a commitment to our student-athletes, when they came to Stanford, to offer them the best possible academic and athletic experience. The rest of our conference, and the other Power 5 conferences, are now proceeding with competition. We have concluded that, as long as we are able to provide for our students' health and safety in rigorous ways, and allow them to make the final decision whether or not to play, there is no value in requiring them to miss a full year of competition.
I will let you Google what the other school President's said, but it is remarkably similar.
