FB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[HSCTiger64]

Where does it stop?  Is the name enough? Changing the name does not change the past.  Will changing the name increase the number of black students and faculty members (currently 2.2% and 4.1%) Real change is a little harder than a name change. Telling generations of alumni they should be ashamed of their alma mater just to placate today's left seems foolish to me.  But heck I went to school in North Carolina, a state who gets its name from King Charles I. A king who granted a license to a syndicate of traders that gave them approval to transport slaves from Guinea. So I cannot say too much.

JK I can relate to your story completely.  This might give me away, but it has been well over a decade since I last suited up, but I was a W&L football player for a season before transferring closer to home and H-SC.  Still have good memories of the place and Coach Mirriello, and root for Coach Abell at Davidson.  With that said, I remember coming from a rural school district where 50 maybe 55% of our student population was black and playing football with a team that was 80% black.  I didn't think anything of it, as I had grown up with it my whole life.  My first day I walked into the locker room, and back then they were divided into offensive and defensive locker rooms.  I sat down in my stall with the other linemen and looked around.  I realized we didn't have a single black player on offense.  In my head I kinda shuttered and thought that I had never blocked for a white running back in my life and rarely had we ever thrown the ball to a white receiver.  That was a whole new world for me.  I personally, would be against a name change for the school but would understand the world that dictates it.  The minority population and issue at H-SC wasn't as pronounced during my time there but I think one of my friends was the first black starting offensive lineman in school history.  Which being in the 2000's is crazy to think about.  H-SC, I was told, is starting to meet full need for minority students to increase that percentage of the population which I am all for.  Creating the bubbles that W&L and H-SC are in in terms of their student population is where I think the most change needs to be made.  Right now I could go to college for four years and barely have to associate with a person of a different race, that is where change is needed the most.

I think those numbers are a major indication of a problem. And yes, I think changing the name will help with the problem... eventually.

I'll leave one personal story here, though it's one I may have told on this board the last time this debate popped up in 2018. Back in 2016, I think - too lazy to look it up but it was not the most recent game rather the one before, I was at the W&L at Sewanee game. An older, black Sewanee gent approached me hesitantly as I was standing along the endzone and not with the W&L crowd. He asked me, I suspect as nicely as he could imagine, how W&L was still a segregated team. I told him it wasn't but was kind of at a loss for words. He looked at our football team, and our cheering section, and said he didn't see a single black player on the field. I looked him square in the face and told him that there was only ONE black student on the team as far as I knew, a first year from the town over from me in AL. The nice man looked at me for a second and said something like, "I see. I wouldn't have gone to a school named for Lee either."

I think he expected me to make a scene or argue as he kind of cringed after he said it. Instead I looked right at him and told him I didn't blame him. I said I loved my school and made great friends and had a wonderful education, but that for a kid from NJ, Confederate pride came as quite a shock my freshman year.

I stood with that nice older gent, who turned out to be the grandfather of a Sewanee player, for part of the third quarter and we talked cautiously. Mostly about football as I suspect both of us felt pretty awkward after the opening. Finally he said it was nice to talk to me and he was glad his fears weren't true, but he was glad his grandson wasn't at a school named for Lee. I didn't know what to say but I put my hand out to shake his and said it was nice to meet him as well and I hoped his grandson had a great college experience. W&L is a great school, but if the name engenders that kind of response for a significant segment of the American population, we have a problem. That day really confirmed my belief that the name needed to change.

I think, or I hope though I believe I see evidence of it, with each generation there are fewer students in W&L's target audience who are willing to embrace the Antebellum South as heroic and more looking at it as a distasteful if not disgraceful period of American history. I think that is accelerating across the country because as the world becomes more connected and mobile it's harder to maintain the stories that promote Confederate pride. When your main source of history was your school approved textbook and teacher, it was easy to brush slavery aside for states rights. When the world is electronically connected, it's harder for that textbook to stand up to the scrutiny.

I'm not ashamed of W&L, though I'll be sad if they push this decision off again. But here's two things that are facts about R.E. Lee. 1) He didn't want Confederate Monuments. 2) He wanted what was best for what was then Washington College. Dropping the name Lee from Washington and Lee University might be a fit for both of those desires.

[y_jack_lok]

FWIW, NAIA statement on fall sports: https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Fall-Sports-Update.html?soid=1101658699681&aid=pD0IVaLuH2s

[y_jack_lok]

Just in from Swarthmore: https://swarthmoreathletics.com/news/2020/6/30/athletics-seasons-suspended-in-2020.aspx

[y_jack_lok]

Now Grinnell: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29389015/division-iii-grinnell-cancels-football-fall-sports-coronavirus-concerns?platform=amp

[Pat Coleman]

Yes -- Grinnell came out with that on Monday.

We are doing our best to keep up with it here:
https://www.d3sports.com/notables/2020/06/schools-call-it-off-for-fall

[y_jack_lok]

Yes -- Grinnell came out with that on Monday.

We are doing our best to keep up with it here:
https://www.d3sports.com/notables/2020/06/schools-call-it-off-for-fall

Great. Thanks. These decisions do not surprise me. Even if we, as a country, had done a better job of containing the virus such cancellations would not have surprised me.

[Birddawg79]

https://odac.prestosports.com/general/2020-21/releases/070320-odac-fall-update

All ODAC members have agreed to a consistent start date for all regular season play, establishing Friday, September 11, 2020 as the first allowable date of competition for all fall sports.

[y_jack_lok]

https://odac.prestosports.com/general/2020-21/releases/070320-odac-fall-update

All ODAC members have agreed to a consistent start date for all regular season play, establishing Friday, September 11, 2020 as the first allowable date of competition for all fall sports.

No mention of spectators. Maybe there will be some statement forthcoming. Most fall sports are outdoors, which means a bit less risk, but not women's volleyball or swimming.

[Pat Coleman]

https://odac.prestosports.com/general/2020-21/releases/070320-odac-fall-update

All ODAC members have agreed to a consistent start date for all regular season play, establishing Friday, September 11, 2020 as the first allowable date of competition for all fall sports.

No mention of spectators. Maybe there will be some statement forthcoming. Most fall sports are outdoors, which means a bit less risk, but not women's volleyball or swimming.

I would guess that that is something left to the schools to determine on an individual basis.

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ Could be. If that's the case it would be helpful for the conference to say so.

[HSCTiger fan]

4 weeks from today D3 football teams are supposed to start practicing. I just don't see how things are going get so much better that starting practice can happen.  I hope I'm wrong.

[Pat Coleman]

4 weeks from today D3 football teams are supposed to start practicing. I just don't see how things are going get so much better that starting practice can happen.  I hope I'm wrong.

It's five weeks, but agree with your main point otherwise.

[y_jack_lok]

Quote from the article: "We don't know what the world is going to look like in August. Even if everybody involved—players, coaches, fans, and administrators—does everything right we don't know if it will be enough to play the games safely."

https://www.si.com/college/tmg/tony-barnhart/corona-virus?fbclid=IwAR3JTbURN4rGaKSeEccd-Ej2ZHCKrDRSe8GPoGz88CzN4c_LjtpF-dRjA7g

[HSCTiger fan]

The Ivy League canceled all fall sports today.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/ivy-league-scraps-college-football-and-fall-sports-for-2020-will-evaluate-feasibility-of-playing-in-spring/

[jknezek]

W&L cancelled all sports during fall semester. Not in the slightest surprised.