After everything from March Madness to the British Premier League has been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, it comes as no surprise that Asbury Athletics has decided to cancel its spring sports season. Not only has the school itself moved to an online format, making it impossible for the athletes to compete in their regular season, but the NAIA itself announced that they would be cancelling all spring sports.
The first domino fell on March 12, when the AU Athletic Department announced that all sporting events would be suspended through March 31. This decision came not only from AU Athletics, but also from a River States Conference mandate, which stated that all athletic activities — including all competition, informal or organized practice and participation in NAIA championships — would be suspended until March 31.
“The urgency of this crisis is unprecedented and each one of us has a role to play,” said Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Mark Whitworth. “The health and well-being of our students has always been and will remain our top priority. As competitors, our response to this challenge must be to care for those around us by doing our part to slow the spread of COVID-19.”
Asbury athletes and the Athletic Department received the final blow on March 16, when the NAIA officially announced that the 2020 spring sports season was cancelled. This meant that all AU competitions and practices would be cancelled for the remainder of the semester. In accordance with the NAIA, the River States Conference also cancelled all spring sports competitions.
“All possible scenarios that would have supported a spring sports season were seriously considered by multiple NAIA governance groups,” said NAIA President and CEO Jim Carr in an official statement. “However, the growing state of emergency due to COVID-19, as well as the Center for Disease Control’s recommendation yesterday to limit gatherings to fewer than 50 people for eight weeks, meant we could not in good conscience move forward with the spring sports season and championships.”
While this news was very devastating to many of the AU athletes and coaches, particularly the senior spring sports athletes, the NAIA announced that no student athletes will be charged with a season of competition and that “any spring sport student-athlete who was enrolled full-time in 2020 will be awarded two additional semester terms of attendance or the equivalent.”
“My heart really goes out to our spring sports student-athletes, particularly our seniors,” said Whitworth. “The decisions made by the NAIA, RSC and AAC to cancel the remainder of the spring season were necessary despite the individual pain and hurt that our student-athletes will now endure.”