As major sports organizations begin to introduce return to play guidelines, Carleton University’s national U Sports and provincial Ontario University Athletics (OUA) governing bodies are looking at similar decisions.
The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 has left Carleton Athletics scrambling to reach a conclusion on what the upcoming university sports season will look like.
“If there are sports this fall, it will be without any audience,” Carleton Athletics director Jennifer Brenning said.
Delayed and compressed seasons
With the scheduled start of the U Sports season fast approaching at the end of August, Brenning said she is evaluating several planning options for athletics in light of COVID-19.
“First and foremost, the health and safety of our student athletes is paramount,” she said. “We’ve looked at all kinds of programming, for example football training camp in September and a reduced season and reduced playoffs.”
Basketball and hockey, sports which span both semesters, could be delayed to the winter semester, she said. Soccer could be moved indoors in the winter semester.
The committee of athletic directors also thought of more outside-the-box strategies, including offering a series of spring games, Brenning said. They also considered the possibility of not having any fall varsity sports.
No fall sports is a major blow to the university as Carleton was originally slotted as the host school for the U Sports soccer season in the upcoming academic year, but has since been offered the 2021 championship instead.
Uncertainty surrounding fall sport is a difficult reality for some student athletes to believe.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for many years,” Erika Ehrenberg said, an incoming Raven who committed to the women’s varsity hockey team when she was in Grade 11. “The coronavirus [was] unexpected and kind of put a big wrench in the plans I had.”
Ehrenberg also said the possibility of a delayed sports season with no set dates has made her lose motivation.
“I had a goal in mind, I knew I needed to be at my best by that date,” she said. “But now that there’s the absence of those set dates and the certainty of things occurring in the way that I was expecting them to, it’s really left me just feeling like I don’t know what I need to do.”
While North American professional sports leagues have begun plans to see a return to play, the USPORTS level has obstacles that make a return to sport more difficult.
“We can’t, for example, go into a hub and quarantine and play,” Brenning said.
Financial impact of COVID-19
The funding model is also different for U Sports. Carleton varsity and other U Sports programs generate profits from ancillary student tuition fees, charging for gym access, and renting out spaces to off-campus programs. Amid COVID-19, many of these revenue streams are dry.
Over the summer term, Carleton did not charge an ancillary fee for athletics. In year’s past, collecting this fee from students annually accounted for 38 per cent of the varsity’s operating budget.
Brenning said athletic scholarships, which are valued at a maximum of $4,000 annually per athlete, are also in limbo.
“The impact on scholarships are the interest on the endowed funds, as well as determination whether we will have the Presidents Golf Tournament this year that raises money for athletic scholarships,” Brenning said in an emailed statement.
She added the tournament is currently scheduled for August 19.
Should sports be cancelled during the 2020-21 academic year altogether, Brenning said Carleton Athletics will comply with OUA and U Sports decisions as to whether athletic scholarships will still be provided.
In the meantime, the university is currently working with the City of Ottawa to see whether they can offer any kind of programming to boost funds.
“Right now it’s about determining what is an acceptable financial loss for this year,” Brenning said.
Maintaining hope
Yet, despite all of the challenges, some members of the Carleton Athletics community are maintaining positive attitudes.
“Things drastically changed, but in a lot of ways your daily grind of your day has not changed,” Carleton head football coach Steve Sumarah said. “The biggest thing we’ve been doing is just trying to stay ahead of our football [by] staying in touch with our players.”
Training from a distance is difficult mentally for the football team, Sumarah said, so the team’s therapist reaches out weekly to players and ensures they have access to mental health services.
“Most guys right now are still in a positive mindset,” he said. “They’re thinking like ‘Okay still got to get ready for school and the season,’ depending on what happens that might change, but right now they feel pretty good.”
Normally in the spring, Sumarah said he visits potential athletes at home and travels to watch games during recruiting. While he can’t recruit in-person this year and is unsure of what the next season will look like, he said he is still looking forward to working with athletes.
“We did a pretty good job in preparation for this and we had a good idea of who we were going to recruit for the 2021 season anyway,” he said. “We’re excited.”
— With files from Mark Colley and Fatum Ali Tahir.
Featured image from file.
