d3photography.com photo by Tom Nettleton

By Pat Coleman
D3sports.com

The news we have been waiting for, and dreading, has finally broken, and the Division III fall championships have been canceled.

Five months ago, when the NCAA canceled all winter and spring championships in one fell swoop, the news was more sudden, but no more sad. This slow-motion train crash has been obvious for weeks, and foreseeable for months.

But what happens next?

Yes, the American Rivers Conference was still on the record as sponsoring its fall sports at the time, but even they had to recant in early August. Football teams can play up to five games without costing their student-athletes a year of eligibility, and some might well opt to play in this mini-season. Adrian, Calvin and Trine in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association broke from their conference comrades and say they will compete in the fall.

Others will certainly attempt to play their fall sports in the spring, and it seems likely many schools will do so, provided that spread and control of the COVID-19 virus is improved in six to seven months. Perhaps the cost of tests will come down and the availability will be improved by then. However, the flurry of conferences which say they will explore playing their fall sports in the spring have a bunch of logistical issues to consider before they can even play their half-schedule.

Where do you put all of these games?

For 295 schools which have women’s lacrosse and 248 which have men’s lacrosse, the battle for resources with men’s and women’s soccer and football is going to be significant. At many schools, these teams all share the same field. Would lacrosse, which has already lost a season to the coronavirus, be asked to take a back seat to fall sports?

This isn’t likely. Division III presidents know that the spring sports have already been affected and will work to make sure that the spring gets priority. The NCAA won’t hold national championships for fall sports in the spring.

“Looking at the health and safety challenges we face this fall during this unprecedented time, we had to make this tough decision to cancel championships for fall sports this academic year in the best interest of our student-athlete and member institutions,” Tori Murden McClure, chair of the Presidents Council and president at Spalding, said in the NCAA's release. “Our Championships Committee reviewed the financial and logistical ramifications if Division III fall sports championships were conducted in the spring and found it was logistically untenable and financially prohibitive. Our Management Council reached the same conclusion. Moving forward, we will try to maximize the championships experience for our winter and spring sport student-athletes, who unfortunately were short-changed last academic year.”

With that in mind, we should expect to see a number of schools attempt to play a small number of games. At many schools, this will likely be less than the maximum number of five football games which would allow students to maintain their year of eligibility. In 10-team conferences, you could see them split off into divisions, have each team play the other four division opponents and have a championship-style game against the winner of the other division. In the end, that is two home games for most football teams and a third home game for a limited number, and that would likely not be a logistical nightmare. But between field time, game operations staff and athletic trainers, a spring like this with four or five football games, eight men’s and eight women’s soccer games, women’s volleyball, etc., would be a challenge at most schools.

The thought of a spring football season with most or all of our big rivalries, perhaps a bunch of conference championship games, is pretty enticing, even if we only have 200 games or so instead of our usual 1,200.

But there is another issue to consider as well. Now that the fall sports have been effectively called off almost everywhere, it seems likely that many fall student-athletes will choose to take a semester off of school. Even though eligibility wouldn’t be affected, the cost of spending another semester on campus is likely more than many student-athletes can bear.

Without fall student-athletes enrolled – and in many schools, without fall student-athletes actually living in dorms – many schools will run up huge deficits. Colleges generally make money on room and board, and not having that will be a big impact to the bottom line.

Higher education is already in a position where a shaking out of schools is inevitable. At the Division III level, MacMurray College closed its doors in the spring, Johnson & Wales is closing its Division III school in Denver, and Pine Manor is being absorbed into Boston College. Wesley is en route to being purchased by Delaware State and may end up losing its athletics program in the process. And if a number of schools see their fall athletes spend a semester unenrolled, you may see more. There are a number of schools which simply cannot survive without 100 of their student-athletes.

As with MacMurray, these are already schools which are stressed, and the coronavirus would be providing the final blow. But when spring rolls around, and certainly the fall of 2021, there will be some schools which don’t return.

In addition, this means many Division III student-athletes won't end up having a senior season. Some may already have been planning on this fall being a ninth semester or fifth year to their career and are headed to graduate school, or a high-paying job in their professional field – this is Division III after all.

The fall 2020 season will never quite be replicated. No matter how many games fall sports can get in next spring, no matter how many seniors come back with hopes of playing in the fall of 2021, there will be players missing, coaches retiring, opponents gone from the schedule and an additional crop of new freshmen. 

Forever, this fall will join the winter and spring sports of 2020, denoted by an asterisk. And now we have to hope we can quash the virus in time to get basketball and winter sports ramped up in January.