Fall sports are going to look a lot different this year.
Colorado Mesa University (CMU) football, volleyball and men’s/women’s soccer teams have all been postponed to the spring season. With those sports being postponed, CMU has six sports that have been cleared to participate in the fall.
“In general, for lower to medium risk sports, there are testing requirements when you’re in season, they aren’t as stringent as they would have been for soccer, volleyball and football,” Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Commissioner (RMAC), Chris Graham, said.
“That was one of the reasons sports were moved to the spring where that the availability and the cost of testing were not what we hoped they would be.”
Men’s and women’s golf was deemed as a low-risk sport due to the social distancing built into the sport. Both teams will be playing their regular season and championship play normally with each being its own separate season in the fall and spring.
The Mavericks have four tournaments equating to eight days of live competition. Both team’s first tournament is the Mile High Shootout Sept. 14 in Thorton Colo.
Men’s and women’s cross country are the other NCAA sanctioned sport that will participate in the fall. Cross country was deemed as a moderate risk sport due to the start and finish line where social distancing can breakdown.
Graham said that there was a possibility of moving cross country to the spring. Graham also said the committee didn’t move cross country because it would’ve negatively affected the runners as some participate in indoor or outdoor track in the offseason.
Both teams are scheduled for one meet Sept. 19 before the RMAC Championship on Oct. 19. Times for both meets are to be determined.
Two club sports will also be allowed to participate in their fall season for CMU. Cycling and rodeo were both cleared for their seasons this year. Neither cycling nor rodeo has a schedule posted on the CMU Athletics website yet.
The difficulty is that all six sports require travel for nearly every competition. The guidelines for travel haven’t been finalized yet.
“Working with local health and the state of Colorado on what locales we can go to, which ones do we have to stay away from, and can we travel out of state,” CMU Athletic Director, Bryan Rooks, said. “All of those are just being planned out and submitted, so we will continue to work with those local health officials and the guidance from the medical group we have put together.”
Player safety was placed as the highest priority in determining if they would participate in their regularly scheduled seasons. In order to resume athletics, each university that is a part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association must abide by the resocialization guidelines.
The resocialization guidelines align with the information the Center for Disease Control and local health agencies have provided. The guidelines contained plans for the core principles, gating criteria, phase one, phase two and phase three for resocialization of students and student-athletes.
Each part of the resocialization guidelines promotes social distancing and sanitation. Common areas where student-athletes and staff meet should remain closed until phase three. Those common areas can reopen in phase three or earlier if proper distancing and sanitation protocols are followed.
