FB: American Rivers Conference

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NCAA DIII issues additional recommendations

The Division III Administrative Committee recommends member schools not compete in the fall term to avoid potential increased health and safety risks ... effective immediately,

• Schools that decide to engage in outside competition during the fall term to review existing health care cost coverage with student-athletes to help them make an informed decision about participation.
• Schools must inform student-athletes of the risk classification of their sports
• Report to NCAA about how the school is complying with the NCAA Resocialization of Collegiate Sport
• Institutions may not require student-athletes to waive their legal rights regarding COVID-19 as a condition of participating in athletics.
• All full-time enrolled student-athletes who opt out (that is, the student-athlete decides not to engage in any activity during or after the first contest) would get a two-semester/three-quarter extension.

https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/diii-administrative-committee-recommends-not-competing-fall-term

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Reasoning behind NCAA's new recommendations

Consistent with the [NCAA DIII] Board of Governors, the Administrative Committee believed it is inappropriate for student-athletes and their families to unknowingly assume related health care expenses when local health officials apply established contact tracing protocol and identify athletics competition as the source of a student-athlete's COVID-19 infection.

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Reasoning behind NCAA's new recommendations

Consistent with the [NCAA DIII] Board of Governors, the Administrative Committee believed it is inappropriate for student-athletes and their families to unknowingly assume related health care expenses when local health officials apply established contact tracing protocol and identify athletics competition as the source of a student-athlete's COVID-19 infection.

Can Insurers sue COVID spreaders?

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... or deny claims for athletes that participate in high risk sports (such as football) when contact tracing links their voluntary participation to a coronavirus outbreak despite local and Federal guidelines directing people to follow social distancing and/or wearing masks?

Sincerely yours,
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[doolittledog]

... or deny claims for athletes that participate in high risk sports (such as football) when contact tracing links their voluntary participation to a coronavirus outbreak despite local and Federal guidelines directing people to follow social distancing and/or wearing masks?

Sincerely yours,
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Playing sports seems too hot of an issue for D3 to play.  Yet, we have high school sports in many states going ahead with their schedules.  I don't even know what to think any more.   

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By playing a football season, schools have accepted the chance that an athlete who contracts the virus could suffer from severe complications. In doing so, they're taking a legal risk, because if an outbreak on a team leads to an adverse outcome, schools will inevitably find themselves faced with lawsuits.

The plaintiffs — in this case, athletes and their families — would probably pursue negligence claims, asserting that an entity such as their school failed to exercise reasonable care and that led to an adverse outcome. But they would have to prove the school's negligence caused an athlete to contract the virus, which may be difficult.

"Could there really be lawsuits where schools have to pay out because of covid? I think that's tricky," said Dionne Koller, a professor of law and the director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore. "Could there be a lot of lawsuits over this? Undoubtedly, yes, there would be."

"We can all sort of surmise that putting a lot of athletes together in a sport where there's lots of close contact during a raging pandemic is a bad idea and is probably going to cause cases to spike," Koller said. "But if you look at actually litigating a case like this, where you have to plead factual allegations, you'll have to show that that kid got covid from playing on the football team and didn't get covid from going out to a bar."

The successful lawsuits would involve athletes who essentially did nothing but attend football practices and meetings. Attorneys might hire contact tracing experts who could link the athlete to an outbreak on the team. They would still have to show that the school breached its duty of care through not following proper protocols.
"I do not doubt that there will be lawsuits," Duru said. "The question is whether lawsuits would ultimately be successful. I think what'd you probably see are lawsuits and then, depending on the facts, a fair number of settlements, because I'm not sure that universities want to find themselves going down this line."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/08/17/if-college-football-players-have-complications-coronavirus-expect-lawsuits-follow/%3foutputType=amp

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Legal settlements could target endowments

[doolittledog]

These sports are all practicing at the moment.  Practicing is not considered unacceptable but 1 game every other week is just too crazy to allow?  What would stop them from hiring an attorney and saying there should have been no in person classes and bring a lawsuit that way?  That endowment would still be threatened. 

How are high schools not under the same pressures that colleges are facing?   

[Schipper Strong]

Right now Iowa has the worst/highest in the nation case rate per 100,000 people. Will be interesting to see how high school football goes and for how long.

[BLynn]

Watched CAU Bears beat Austin Peay last night.  CFB looked great again.  Plus, it looks repeatable by other colleges, based on the following data.  Found this on a report from the CDC.  Here's the link - https://fox8.com/news/coronavirus/new-cdc-report-shows-94-of-covid-19-deaths-in-us-had-underlying-medical-conditions/

The article boiled down - "only 6% of deaths have COVID-19 as the only cause mentioned, revealing that 94% of patients who died from coronavirus also had underlying health conditions"  This means about 10 to 11K of the 180,000 deaths are truly due to Covid-19.  With precautions in place, colleges can catch some of the 'underlying issues' before they become death-inducing issues, (see Max Duggan from Council Bluffs at TCU).

Not down-playing Covid, but if we were told this earlier we probably don't shut down America.

[Pat Coleman]

Unfortunately, many, many, many Americans have underlying conditions. We're not super good at keeping healthy in this country. Granted, college students won't have as many of those, but spreading things will inevitably bring it into contact with those who are more vulnerable, right?

[BLynn]

Where do we draw the line?  Why didn't we draw the line in 2018-19 and close up shops with over 34,000 dead?
"CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season."

[MediaGuy]

Where do we draw the line?  Why didn't we draw the line in 2018-19 and close up shops with over 34,000 dead?
"CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season."

I agree, as I see things the COVID-19 pandemic hasn't changed the "risk/reward" discussion in regards to playing football, only added another element to the decision.  Football is a unique sport in itself...and every player and coach deals with a certain amount of risk by participating.  I heard a high school coach from Pennsylvania sum it up pretty well when he said "We all accept a degree of risk when we choose to play football.  Heck, we have an ambulance parked next to the field when we play, what other sport does that? We accept the risk that we can be crippled for life, paralyzed or even killed while playing the game we love, but that has always been a decision we leave to the players and their parents.  We have trusted their judgement for over 100 years in determining if participating in the sport we love is worth the risk, so why can't we include the chance of contracting COVID in that risk/reward decision making process."

I understand that schools, communities and individuals are concerned about the long term liability of organizing mass activities like in person classes, public gatherings, church services or athletic events, but since I was in 7th grade, every sport I played held a meeting of players and parents before anyone practiced or so much as laced up a shoe, during which the expectations for being a part of the team and the risks involved were all listed and agreed upon, and all players and parents were asked to sign a liability statement acknowledging they were advised of the "worst case scenario" and anyone not willing to take the associated risks were free to leave and not be a part of the team.  I don't understand how that list of risks agreed upon can't include "While all available precautions will be taken to decrease the chances of contracting COVID-19, "School" can not guarantee their student athletes will be protected from contracting COVID-19.  Those choosing to participate in "sport/activity" do so at their own risk and forgo holding "school" liable for any short or long term health conditions related to COVID-19 infection/contraction/exposure."

Maybe I'm just naive, but if healthy 18-23 year olds are willing to risk permanent injury or death to play football in 2019, I'd think they are just as willing to risk getting a virus that is statistically as dangerous to their age range as many other already present diseases. 

[doolittledog]

I understand the D3 committee cancelling the championships as more and more conferences shut things down.  I'm just not a fan of them pretty much making it impossible for games to be played by schools that still wished to do so. 

[blue_jays]

Where do we draw the line?  Why didn't we draw the line in 2018-19 and close up shops with over 34,000 dead?
"CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 35.5 million illnesses, more than 16.5 million medical visits, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths during the 2018–2019 influenza season."

We have a flu shot for the flu. We don't have a COVID vaccine yet. There's the difference.