Colorado Mesa University (CMU) Athletics like many other universities will have an overcrowded spring season.
The NCAA made a statement on August 5th that they had decided to cancel all fall national championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) sent notice that all fall sports other than four would be postponed to the spring shortly after the NCAA’s statement. Men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball and football headline the list of postponed sports.
The CMU Athletic Department is organizing each team’s practice and game schedule to ensure the least amount of conflicts.
“We are trying to map out as we start to build some of these schedules without conflicting on college campuses and really trying to make sure that there is going to be overlap but make sure the institutions are not loaded with ten events on the weekend,” Co-Athletic Director Bryan Rooks said.
Maverick Field is sure to be a busy place this spring as it is home to not only CMU women’s and men’s soccer and lacrosse.
“I think that our biggest challenge is going to be sharing the Maverick Field. Altogether there are two high schools that play lacrosse boys and girls and four high schools that play soccer boys and girls, CMU Men’s Lacrosse Head Coach Vince Smith said. “So that is probably gonna be our biggest challenge is how in the spring are we going to utilize ten programs really needing to use that space on almost a daily basis.”
Conversations are ongoing about the scheduling of the many programs that will use the field. One of the conversations that are ongoing is if an athlete is a multisport athlete and how to balance their schedules.
“A lot of those cross country kids run distance in the fall and then turn around and are on the track team and run distance. So what does that truly look like working with the NCAA on what seasons of competition looks like, what eligibility looks like and so those are conversations that have been discussed,” Rooks said.
The fall sports teams are allowed to practice and use this time as they would in the spring as an offseason.
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“For us, it is kind of cool because normally we just have two weeks to prepare and then we are in it so now we have a whole semester to work on stuff, team tactics before we get into any games,” Women’s Soccer Head Coach Dani Thurman said.
As of now, teams will only play other teams within the RMAC shortening team’s seasons. The athletic department and each individual team are working to play non-conference games. As of now, the decisions to play a non-conference game is still be discussed by those teams.
CMU is following the NCAA mandated guidelines laid out with information from the Center for Disease Control along with local and state health and safety guidelines. Teams have been put into families in order to keep their players healthy and for contact tracing.
“So depending on the sport all of them have been a little different ultimately we have got them in an all sport broken into the family component the guidelines from the NCAA are driving a lot of that and they are changing daily,” Rooks said.
The athletic department will continue to work closely with the health department to ensure the safety of everyone involved.
