Ivy League Cancels Sports Until 2021; Fall Sports May Play in Spring

The Ivy League has canceled all fall sports as well as early-season winter sports competitions, but is leaving open the option that some fall sports (namely, football) may play in the spring, multiple outlets are reporting.

Update: the league confirmed the reports Wednesday afternoon. Click here to view the full release.

Winter sports, like swimming, won’t have any competitions until at least January 1, 2021. The league will make a decision about winter sports practice schedules in mid-July, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein.

The decision is expected to have a widespread impact on college athletics, despite the conference’s relatively small athletic footprint. The Ivy League was the first to cancel its men’s basketball postseason tournament in March, with top conferences – like the Pac-12 – following suit shortly thereafter.

Some sports activities, like conditioning (under COVID-safe circumstances), may be permitted at individual institutions.

NCAA Division I Fall Sports:

  • Men’s & Women’s Cross Country
  • Women’s Field Hockey
  • Men’s Football
  • Men’s and Women’s Soccer
  • Women’s Volleyball
  • Men’s Water Polo

The league also canceled all spring sports on March 11 and left it up to schools to determine if they would attend remaining winter sports championships, including in swimming, before those events were also canceled.

The Ivy League competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) of college football, formerly known as 1-AA. The Ivy League has a self-imposed restriction on participation in the FCS college football playoff.

Princeton, Brown, and Harvard sponsor NCAA Division I men’s water polo programs, though they compete in the NWCP Conference, and not in the Ivy League. The league has clarified that Ivy League schools will not participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester, even if sports, like men’s water polo, participate in other conferences.

Swimming’s most notable Ivy League attendee, Dean Farris, told SwimSwam in May that he planned to return to school next year following a would-be Olympic redshirt season. Under the new athletics schedule, Farris could theoretically train at Texas through the year and still compete for Harvard in the spring, if the pandemic allows.

Harvard and Princeton announced Monday that they will only invite students back to campus in groups segmented throughout the academic year. At Harvard, up to 40% of the undergrad population will be allowed on campus at once, with all freshmen coming in the fall and all seniors on-campus in the spring. Regardless of where students are based, however, they will take classes entirely online. At Princeton, freshmen and juniors will be allowed on campus in the fall, while sophomores and seniors will be there in the spring. Cornell and Penn have announced plans to welcome all students back to campus in the fall, with Cornell saying that they believe the university can make a safer environment on campus than at home.

Around the nation, additional schools are slowly releasing their plans for the fall. Some are opting for hybrid (part online, part in-person) formats, or to host classes entirely online. However, a new wrinkle has emerged from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s announcement Monday that international students can’t remain in the U.S. if their fall semesters are entirely online.

Last week, USC announced that it would move undergraduate instruction primarily online for the fall, save labs, studios, research courses, and selected others requiring in-person meetings; UCLA is taking a similar approach. The California State system announced in May that most of its campuses will remain closed for the fall semester.

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Karen
4 years ago

I know one thing for sure, my Robert will be practicing this year, whether his coach wants to let him or not! First these libs want to tell me I can get my monthly hair coloring and now youre telling me my boy can’t compete?? Not a chance buddy, he’ll be swimming IRREGARDLESS!

DLswim
Reply to  Karen
4 years ago

LOL

Tea rex
4 years ago

At this rate, I’m hoping we’ll all be able to get together on mars colonies where the virus can’t survive

swimfast
4 years ago

this is a question of the system…..not of dean, harvard, or texas: so he can train at texas for a year, including months preceding championships (also keeping in mind that the fall semester is, in swimming season terms, much more heavily weighted time-wise than spring) and then compete for harvard in the same system that basically strips athletes of any endorsement rights astray from their school whatsoever? i don’t get it

Willswim
4 years ago

Good, maybe the threat that soon winter sports could be cancelled too will prompt Dean to cure covid and we can finally be done with this mess.

HISWIMCOACH
4 years ago

Interesting quote from an article I read to put in perspective the actual risk for 90+% of those in college campuses:
“To put this in perspective, at the current rate, 432 Floridians under the age of 65 with no known co-morbidity factors will die over 12 months. In 2018, 2,538 people under the age of 65 died on Florida’s highways. Yet we don’t stop driving.”

Full article for those who are interested: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/americas-greatest-mistake-since-vietnam-michael-ross-cfp-/

Ladyvoldisser
Reply to  HISWIMCOACH
4 years ago

Exactly!

Hank Monroe
Reply to  HISWIMCOACH
4 years ago

I think Trump should come out and recommend that schools close campus’s for the year and then we would have plenty of advocates to open up in the Fall.

Corn Pop
Reply to  Hank Monroe
4 years ago

Russians offered bounties to clear the campuses. The House of Reps will order them back .

Awsi Dooger
Reply to  Hank Monroe
4 years ago

He can play the victim’s role as he eventually realizes he traded a reputation as intriguing businessman for eternal mockery as the worst president of all time and one of the worst Americans of all time. That is hardly a prediction. It is inevitability.

Alum14
Reply to  Hank Monroe
4 years ago

Yep. Both political parties and their minions would flip flop their opinions.

Partisanship is nothing new in this country. The fact that a real estate empire heir, and his tweets, determine each party’s stance is the new thing.

Greg
Reply to  HISWIMCOACH
4 years ago

I think we should consider and ask the following:

2,538 deaths out of how many drivers? 2,538 accidents resulting in death out of how many accidents? 2,538 deadly driving experiences out of how many total driving experiences? We should also ask how many of the 2,538 deaths had co-morbidity factors that may have attributed to their death? How many of the 2,538 deaths had non co-morbidity factors that may have contributed to death?

IMO, the answers to these questions will give valuable insight to the Certified Financial Planner’s implied question (the author of the article and referenced quote) as to why we don’t stop driving.

Awsi Dooger
Reply to  Greg
4 years ago

Why bother responding to that caliber of argument? He is merely parroting from right wing sites. That’s what they have all been desperately doing since March. It should be impossible to go 0-1000 in anything but conservatives have succeeded in defining themselves as breakthtakingly stupid throughout this pandemic. I’m sure the Ivy League would be canceling all sports due to the flu.

Ladyvoldisser
Reply to  Awsi Dooger
4 years ago

Agree that liberals have defined themselves as more breathtakingly stupid than dirt throughout this pandemic which will soon be reclassified by the CDC as merely a virus/flu from China.

Ladyvoldisser
Reply to  Awsi Dooger
4 years ago

Ignorant comment

HISWIMCOACH
Reply to  Awsi Dooger
4 years ago

The “tolerant left” reveals itself again.

I was unaware a certified financial planner offering a different perspective was a right wing site.

You seem to really be open to outside opinions.

What will you do in a month when the epidemic is in fact over in the states and there are not nearly enough deaths (or even cases) to justify some of these decisions?

Tea rex
Reply to  HISWIMCOACH
4 years ago

Europe has sports resuming now because they actually did the work to contain the virus.

Ladyvoldisser
Reply to  Tea rex
4 years ago

And returning to schools because of the low risk and transmission to and from children

HISWIMCOACH
Reply to  Ladyvoldisser
4 years ago

You know the virus is different in Europe! Because, Trump.

Quaker
4 years ago

Penn is also allowing all their undergraduates back to campus

sadboihours
4 years ago

damn it’s really starting to become a reality that i won’t be swimming in college this year.

SSwimer
Reply to  sadboihours
4 years ago

forreal really sad

Metoo
Reply to  sadboihours
4 years ago

I’m feeling the same thing. It is extremely hard staying motivated at this point in the summer

HUNTLEYJOnes
4 years ago

So are practices for these sports in the fall canceled as well?

swimfan210_
Reply to  HUNTLEYJOnes
4 years ago

I guess

Admin
Reply to  HUNTLEYJOnes
4 years ago

Seems like that’s going to be handled on a sport by sport basis. Here’s Harvard’s answer:

Q: Even though we aren’t competing in Fall 2020, am I permitted to practice with my coach in-person if I am in the residential cohort?
A: Athletics practices will be dependent upon Harvard College’s policy for extracurricular gatherings during the Fall 2020 semester, and we will operate within the campus guidelines set for all students. Those decisions have not been made at this time and we will communicate updated practice policies as soon as possible.

About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

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