ANTHONY GETTINO
Sports Editor
Unlike previous semesters, there is no guarantee that SUNY Fredonia will compete against other schools for Spring 2021.
However, the feelings toward this are much different from the previous 12 months for SUNY Fredonia, and there is hope to return to competition once more.
Within the next month, a full calendar year will have passed since any sports team here has played a competitive game. However, the hope is that it won’t be much longer than that for the wait to be over.
With SUNY having more regulated and strict COVID screening guidelines for Spring 2021 semester across all campuses, there is a possibility that teams can begin competing against their SUNY counterparts at the start of April.
There are still hurdles to jump in order for this to become a reality, though these will be coming to pass in the near future.
By the end of February, the largest of these issues that spring sports may face will have been resolved.
In order for the SUNYAC to hold a season, the board of presidents of all the campuses will have to deliberate on whether the risk is worth the safety of the student athletes that would be competing.
With the added testing, the decision will be pretty cut and dry. If the numbers on each campus within the SUNYAC remain low and don’t begin to spike or increase week by week, there is a very high chance of a spring season.
If the numbers on campuses begin to surge as tests continue, then there will be no safe option for a season to happen.
With the current setup at Fredonia, if there is an increase in cases from one week to the next, all sports practices will have to take a pause until the positive cases begin to flatten or decrease once again.
With that said, teams will begin to prepare for a spring season in the next 10-14 days by starting practices.
Having not just our campus, but the entire SUNY system continue to follow COVID protocol will be essential toward these athletes’ hopes of competing once again this spring.