The moral case for playing College Football in 2020

The SEC announced its coronavirus-modified schedule on Friday to much fanfare.

At that moment, it seemed like College Football was going to move forward in spite of the coronavirus, much like things have moved forward for MLB, the NHL, the NBA and professional golf.

But then on Saturday, the Mid-American Conference (MAC) canceled its season due to the virus. With that cancelation came a bunch of commentary from well-established College Football reporters that Power-5 ADs are becoming more and more doubtful that a season will be played.

News from CBS Sports: 2 Power Five ADs: ‘Inevitable’ 2020 college football season will not be played this fall https://t.co/3XKwARGm6k

— Dennis Dodd (@dennisdoddcbs) August 9, 2020

Chances are if you’ve spent any time listening to the political arguments, you’ve heard about the risks of the virus and the sacrifice that players are making going back to play. But I want to talk about a different kind of risk and a different kind of sacrifice.

You may not be aware of it, but currently there are 10,000 children globally per month who are dying of hunger because of coronavirus-related food shortages. There are also 550,000+ children per month who are going to be affected by “wasting”, a condition caused by malnutrition that causes irreversible long-term physical and mental disabilities.

Because people are not traveling like they normally do, oil prices have plunged. In countries like South Sudan (99% of exports are oil), that means that the economy is on the verge of complete collapse.

And tuberculosis – which kills 1.5 million people annually – is starting to spread more aggressively as well. Estimates put the cost of additional lockdowns at somewhere between 400,000 and 1.4 million excess deaths due to TB over the next five years.

These are mostly consequences in countries far away from us. But in the U.S., hospitals are reporting less visits for strokes and heart attacks, as people suffering from these afflictions are avoiding getting help because of fear of the virus. Vaccinations have also sharply declined in the U.S., again as parents try to do the right thing to keep their kids safe.

Domestic violence is up during the lockdowns. There are concerns that suicides tied to COVID have or are going to spike. And many schools are having kids learn virtually, a decision that will surely widen the gap between children who have parents equipped to help them at home and those who don’t.

So what does this have to do with College Football? Well, everything actually.

If the season is played, some players are going to get the disease. There may be some who have life-changing complications or even – God forbid – die from it. While the probability of either one happening is exceedingly low based on the data we have, there’s a lot we don’t know and probabilities only matter to those unaffected directly.

The fact is that there will always be risk involved in engaging in any form of what we would have considered “normal” prior to March, even when or if a vaccine becomes available.

But that risk can be mitigated.

The players are going to have better medical care than they would have at home. They’re going to know quickly if they have been exposed to the virus either within their own team or through contact with an opponent because they are going to be tested. And they are going to know whether their teammates have been following social distancing protocols.

Most of us don’t have that at our jobs, or even at home if we’ve been laid off or are fortunate enough to be able to work remotely.

Every time I go to work, I have to rely on the people I work with to not place themselves in high-risk situations and stay home if they are experiencing symptoms. College Football players are going to be quarantined if they cough because food went down the wrong pipe.

I don’t think the idea that players are unpaid changes these facts. Conferences have already made it clear that players who don’t want to play don’t have to and will be able to keep their scholarships. And I just can’t get past that these players are likely safer playing and practicing than they are visiting the local 7/11 after practice for a Slurpee.

Pay them if you want, but that’s a separate discussion that shouldn’t have anything to do with COVID-19.

This coronavirus isn’t going away. People are going to continue getting sick and dying from it. That’s a scary proposition for people living in a country where living well into our 80s is a birth-right, especially because contracting it doesn’t come from some nefarious person wishing to do us harm, but likely a friend or family member who would never want to hurt us.

And if you’re a high-risk individual, I certainly support having programs in place to help support you while outbreaks are present in your particular area.

But we are some of the richest people the world has ever seen. Based on consumption, the poorest 20% of Americans live better than most European countries, let alone many of the developing countries that are teetering on the edge.

The United State is far better equipped to weather the issues that come with an economic shutdown than just about any country. But we’re also far better equipped to deal with the pandemic as well, both from an economic and medical treatment standpoint.

I’m incredibly thankful that I live in a country with those advantages. But with those kind of advantages, there is – or at least there should be – a moral responsibility to help others who don’t have them.

That means we can’t just consider how coronavirus may impact us or our family. It means we have to consider how our actions – or lack thereof – will impact the 10,000 children per month who are going to die because of food shortages in no part because their local economies are collapsing.

We have to consider the people who are going to die of tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. We have to consider the people who are going to die of preventable diseases because they didn’t get vaccinated. We have to consider the kids who are going to go to jail because their schools were shut down.

College Football is a part of that, not just because of the dollars that it generates, but also because of its place within our cultural discussion and college’s role in driving discourse forward.

I get it. It can be scary to put people you care about in harm’s way.

I had the same thought when my wife and I talked about whether we should let our kids participate in Little League this year. But it was a pretty easy decision to let our kids play.

The conclusion that we came to was that we can’t protect them from everything that is going to cross their path in this world. We can only do our best to keep them safe based on what we know. And what I know is that my three children are extraordinarily unlikely to be impacted by this virus, as am I.

I’d be absolutely gutted if one of them was. But I’m also absolutely gutted at the thought of the 120,000 parents who are going to watch their kids waste away over the next year because we’ve been too afraid to open up the economy here at home.

And I can’t reconcile the fact that we’re letting our fear of what might happen override our moral obligation to prevent what we know will happen.

On Thursday, University of Georgia students and faculty participated in a die-in to protest the school’s plans to open up in a couple of weeks. Their demands were mandatory facemasks, virtual instruction with zero consequences and free COVID testing.

But Georgia is offering virtual options, has face-to-face instruction with social distancing protocols and indoor mask requirements in place, and Athens has free COVID testing already. I’m not sure how much more college can be de-risked.

While I appreciate their accuracy in replicating their football team’s recent fourth quarter performances against Alabama, this is just crazy.

Life is not risk-free. College is supposed to teach us that, and provide us a place to gather to learn and discuss those sorts of trade-offs.

It’s where we’re supposed to look at statistics and probabilities and discuss how they should shape public policy. It’s where we’re supposed to look at the morality and philosophy of prioritizing our needs over others. It’s also where we’re supposed to research not just viral treatments and prevention, but also how shut-downs affect supply chains and the moral ramifications to those sorts of shut-downs.

The Power-5 conferences have an opportunity to force these types of discussions. They have the opportunity to tell their players they will do their best to keep them safe, but that life isn’t risk free. They have the opportunity to teach their students that people are dying today because of these shut-downs without ever contracting the virus.

Sports are valuable because they give us a prism to examine life and culture, and make us comtemplate questions we otherwise wouldn’t. They help teach us lessons that we can’t get anywhere else.

But those lessons can only happen if you play.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy jared422_80