[gailtate]

An opinion I share, below:







By Alex Shultz, SFGATE







Last Thursday, the Pac-12 announced that it’s resuming sports in 2020 after all. The same evening, Pac-12 bigwigs held a virtual press conference with reporters. Commissioner Larry Scott and Chairman Michael Schill recounted how much miraculously changed since Aug. 10, when they originally called off fall and winter athletics. Schill quickly noted that the return to play has “nothing to do with money,” a silly assertion and a sore subject probably worth avoiding entirely after a recent report that Pac-12 upper management (including Scott) took significant bonuses this summer.




It’s true enough that testing college athletes every single day will likely prevent superspreader events. But everything else Pac-12 executives are pushing is absurd revisionist history. Even the relatively indisputable benefits of frequent rapid testing are besides the point, and overshadow the troubling, untenable dynamic that dominates college athletics, where teenagers have little agency in decisions about their health and well-being — regardless of whether they actually want to play or not.

---

In August, the Pac-12 cited three reasons for the suspension of fall and winter athletics, all of which it claims have now been sufficiently addressed. The three reasons are printed verbatim below.

1. High community prevalence and concerns about travel. 
   
2. Concern about health outcomes related to the virus including new information about potential serious cardiac side effects in athletes.
   
3. Concern that testing needed to be done more frequently and closer to game time, including access to rapid turn-around point of care testing.
   

Let’s start with point number one. In the seven weeks since the Pac-12 postponed fall sports, more than 30,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. College campuses across the country inexplicably opened, suffered enormous spikes in cases, subjected students to COVID-contaminated halfway houses, then shut down again. On the West Coast, cases in California, Arizona and Washington are comparatively stable, though California health officials are expecting an 89% rise in hospitalizations over the next month; meanwhile, cases in Colorado are way up, in large part thanks to college campuses; Oregon is also trending upwards; Utah is having its biggest spike since the pandemic started.



The Pac-12 health and safety initiative neatly summarizes this disturbing information as: “Community prevalence and percent of test positivity has improved in most places across the Pac-12 footprint and in the United States (with a few exceptions).” That parenthetical is doing a lot of work. How do college athletes feel about it?







On to point number two: Concerns about health outcomes related to the virus.



When the Pac-12 cancelled sports in August, it sounded the alarm about myocarditis, a serious heart ailment and COVID-19 side effect that’s been discovered among a number of high-level athletes. At the time, I wrote about why I was skeptical of the Pac-12’s newfound apprehension, given that myocarditis has been a point of discussion for many months. It seemed plausible that the conference was more so spooked by the long-term implications of the #WeAreUnited movement and their demands of basic worker rights, which were published online a week before the Pac-12 opted to cancel athletics. Their demands have since been usurped by the #WeWantToPlay hashtag and the start of the college football season, which is great news for Pac-12 executives.







If Pac-12 executives were legitimately worried about the risks associated with myocarditis, they wouldn’t have restarted the season. Nothing has changed in our collective understanding of COVID-19 side effects. Last week, a day before the Pac-12’s announcement of a return to sports, The New York Times published a story about Jamain Stephens, a college football player at California University in Pennsylvania who died of COVID-19. Stephens’ father says his autopsy showed an enlarged heart. “It’s about money,” his father told the Times about the continuation of sports in a pandemic. “We’re going to make it happen regardless of how it happens. So what if we lose a few lives?”







In early September, Quidel, a medical device company, agreed to supply its Sofia 2 rapid testing machines to Pac-12 athletic programs. (Plebeians who merely attend college classes are obviously not eligible.) The rapid tests administer results within 15 minutes.







If players get tested every single day, teams should be able to prevent outbreaks and make up for any differences in sensitivity between antigen rapid-tests and more established PCR methods. Quidel says its device matches the more accurate, longer-turnaround COVID-19 tests 96% of the time, but with a notable caveat, according to the San Diego Tribune: “That testing has been done in people already suspected to have the virus, not in young, healthy adults.” Quidel is desperate to gain more data points from young adults, which is a worthy endeavor — just not one these college athletes explicitly agreed to before Larry Scott and Co. signed on the bottom line.







No matter, Dr. Kim Harmon, Pac-12’s research development director, tells the Tribune: “That’s the beauty of the Pac-12-Quidel partnership,” she says. “We’re going to study this in asymptomatic people and see whether or not it is a path forward. Either it is or it isn’t, and we’re going to figure it out.” So, more guinea pigs.









It’s already cringe-worthy enough when pro sports leagues dump buckets of money for constant COVID testing and COVID-free bubbles that the rest of the public would love to access. At the very least, it’s easier to enjoy watching pro sports leagues during the pandemic because the athletes involved are being paid a salary and have a union representing them, meaning they have the recourse to opt in or out of any playing arrangement.



The Pac-12, meanwhile, seems intent on projecting its sanctimonious routine, referencing its commitment to science and safety as a holier-than-thou degree of separation from other college athletic institutions. It’s the lowest bar imaginable, and far from commendable. The Pac-12 is no different than the rest of the big-time conferences. Schill and Scott are still subjecting college athletes to a fundamentally unfair relationship, just with a more palatable message — and they shouldn’t be able to get away with that message so easily.







Alex Shultz is SFGATE's sports editor. Email: alex.shultz@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AlexShultz

[gailtate]

An opinion I share, below:







By Alex Shultz, SFGATE







Last Thursday, the Pac-12 announced that it’s resuming sports in 2020 after all. The same evening, Pac-12 bigwigs held a virtual press conference with reporters. Commissioner Larry Scott and Chairman Michael Schill recounted how much miraculously changed since Aug. 10, when they originally called off fall and winter athletics. Schill quickly noted that the return to play has “nothing to do with money,” a silly assertion and a sore subject probably worth avoiding entirely after a recent report that Pac-12 upper management (including Scott) took significant bonuses this summer.




It’s true enough that testing college athletes every single day will likely prevent superspreader events. But everything else Pac-12 executives are pushing is absurd revisionist history. Even the relatively indisputable benefits of frequent rapid testing are besides the point, and overshadow the troubling, untenable dynamic that dominates college athletics, where teenagers have little agency in decisions about their health and well-being — regardless of whether they actually want to play or not.

---

In August, the Pac-12 cited three reasons for the suspension of fall and winter athletics, all of which it claims have now been sufficiently addressed. The three reasons are printed verbatim below.

1. High community prevalence and concerns about travel. 
   
2. Concern about health outcomes related to the virus including new information about potential serious cardiac side effects in athletes.
   
3. Concern that testing needed to be done more frequently and closer to game time, including access to rapid turn-around point of care testing.
   

Let’s start with point number one. In the seven weeks since the Pac-12 postponed fall sports, more than 30,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. College campuses across the country inexplicably opened, suffered enormous spikes in cases, subjected students to COVID-contaminated halfway houses, then shut down again. On the West Coast, cases in California, Arizona and Washington are comparatively stable, though California health officials are expecting an 89% rise in hospitalizations over the next month; meanwhile, cases in Colorado are way up, in large part thanks to college campuses; Oregon is also trending upwards; Utah is having its biggest spike since the pandemic started.



The Pac-12 health and safety initiative neatly summarizes this disturbing information as: “Community prevalence and percent of test positivity has improved in most places across the Pac-12 footprint and in the United States (with a few exceptions).” That parenthetical is doing a lot of work. How do college athletes feel about it?







On to point number two: Concerns about health outcomes related to the virus.



When the Pac-12 cancelled sports in August, it sounded the alarm about myocarditis, a serious heart ailment and COVID-19 side effect that’s been discovered among a number of high-level athletes. At the time, I wrote about why I was skeptical of the Pac-12’s newfound apprehension, given that myocarditis has been a point of discussion for many months. It seemed plausible that the conference was more so spooked by the long-term implications of the #WeAreUnited movement and their demands of basic worker rights, which were published online a week before the Pac-12 opted to cancel athletics. Their demands have since been usurped by the #WeWantToPlay hashtag and the start of the college football season, which is great news for Pac-12 executives.







If Pac-12 executives were legitimately worried about the risks associated with myocarditis, they wouldn’t have restarted the season. Nothing has changed in our collective understanding of COVID-19 side effects. Last week, a day before the Pac-12’s announcement of a return to sports, The New York Times published a story about Jamain Stephens, a college football player at California University in Pennsylvania who died of COVID-19. Stephens’ father says his autopsy showed an enlarged heart. “It’s about money,” his father told the Times about the continuation of sports in a pandemic. “We’re going to make it happen regardless of how it happens. So what if we lose a few lives?”







In early September, Quidel, a medical device company, agreed to supply its Sofia 2 rapid testing machines to Pac-12 athletic programs. (Plebeians who merely attend college classes are obviously not eligible.) The rapid tests administer results within 15 minutes.







If players get tested every single day, teams should be able to prevent outbreaks and make up for any differences in sensitivity between antigen rapid-tests and more established PCR methods. Quidel says its device matches the more accurate, longer-turnaround COVID-19 tests 96% of the time, but with a notable caveat, according to the San Diego Tribune: “That testing has been done in people already suspected to have the virus, not in young, healthy adults.” Quidel is desperate to gain more data points from young adults, which is a worthy endeavor — just not one these college athletes explicitly agreed to before Larry Scott and Co. signed on the bottom line.







No matter, Dr. Kim Harmon, Pac-12’s research development director, tells the Tribune: “That’s the beauty of the Pac-12-Quidel partnership,” she says. “We’re going to study this in asymptomatic people and see whether or not it is a path forward. Either it is or it isn’t, and we’re going to figure it out.” So, more guinea pigs.









It’s already cringe-worthy enough when pro sports leagues dump buckets of money for constant COVID testing and COVID-free bubbles that the rest of the public would love to access. At the very least, it’s easier to enjoy watching pro sports leagues during the pandemic because the athletes involved are being paid a salary and have a union representing them, meaning they have the recourse to opt in or out of any playing arrangement.



The Pac-12, meanwhile, seems intent on projecting its sanctimonious routine, referencing its commitment to science and safety as a holier-than-thou degree of separation from other college athletic institutions. It’s the lowest bar imaginable, and far from commendable. The Pac-12 is no different than the rest of the big-time conferences. Schill and Scott are still subjecting college athletes to a fundamentally unfair relationship, just with a more palatable message — and they shouldn’t be able to get away with that message so easily.







Alex Shultz is SFGATE's sports editor. Email: alex.shultz@sfgate.com | Twitter: @AlexShultz

[teejers1]

1.  Myocarditis is an inflammation that was never tested for in athletes prior to Covid 19 (at least that I've read).  Thus, the % of athletes who show post-virus signs of it may or may not be significant.  This was a "big issue" when the Pac wanted to be holier-than-thou, take the high road, and not play, etc.  If it were really the "long-term death/harm" boogey man that some like to raise up the flag pole, I seriously doubt that teams would just "play anyway."  The exposure is too great.  I actually think one benefit from all this might be that teams actually look for this in their players as a matter of routine, and then have players sit out if deemed prudent.

2.  I can't speak to other areas, but SCC could have a 100% increase in Covid hospitalizations and still be absolutely fine with respect to hospital capacity.  The number of Covid (and suspected) Covid cases in SCC hospitals is now below 4% of total patients, and they have 35+% capacity available.  Thus, the ominous figure of a possible increase of 89% of hospitalizations would not mean much here (and may or may not mean much elsewhere).  And btw, that is just speculation.

3.  Of course this is about money.  Any risk-benefit analysis will inevitably include a discussion of financial benefit and costs.  Thus, why anyone is sounding shocked, or disgusted, or what have you because the conference is thinking about money is just being sanctimonious to sound good.  And btw, re-opening any activity should most definitely involve a risk-benefit analysis.  What this really boils down to is that the author does not like the conclusion drawn from that analysis.  But that's a policy decision where reasonable (or at least semi-reasonable) minds can differ.  I don't know if immediate testing is the "game-changer" some think it is, but so far as I can tell, that is the only thing that has changed noticeably since 5 weeks ago (the hospital numbers have gradually been going in the right direction for a while now).

I'm ambivalent about the Pac returning to play; however, I do not begrudge any conference (including the Pac) for giving it a go.  And I wish them all well.

And remember, college football may still not have a complete season this year.  There is a long way to go.  So this author, and you, and others who agree with his take may still have the opportunity to say "Bad idea.  I told you so.  Never should have tried it, etc."

P.S. We've discussed in a separate thread the player "who died of Covid" in another thread, so no need to re-hash that, beyond to say that even assuming death attribution was correct, there was no definitive reason to tie that death to playing football.

[teejers1]

1.  Myocarditis is an inflammation that was never tested for in athletes prior to Covid 19 (at least that I've read).  Thus, the % of athletes who show post-virus signs of it may or may not be significant.  This was a "big issue" when the Pac wanted to be holier-than-thou, take the high road, and not play, etc.  If it were really the "long-term death/harm" boogey man that some like to raise up the flag pole, I seriously doubt that teams would just "play anyway."  The exposure is too great.  I actually think one benefit from all this might be that teams actually look for this in their players as a matter of routine, and then have players sit out if deemed prudent.

2.  I can't speak to other areas, but SCC could have a 100% increase in Covid hospitalizations and still be absolutely fine with respect to hospital capacity.  The number of Covid (and suspected) Covid cases in SCC hospitals is now below 4% of total patients, and they have 35+% capacity available.  Thus, the ominous figure of a possible increase of 89% of hospitalizations would not mean much here (and may or may not mean much elsewhere).  And btw, that is just speculation.

3.  Of course this is about money.  Any risk-benefit analysis will inevitably include a discussion of financial benefit and costs.  Thus, why anyone is sounding shocked, or disgusted, or what have you because the conference is thinking about money is just being sanctimonious to sound good.  And btw, re-opening any activity should most definitely involve a risk-benefit analysis.  What this really boils down to is that the author does not like the conclusion drawn from that analysis.  But that's a policy decision where reasonable (or at least semi-reasonable) minds can differ.  I don't know if immediate testing is the "game-changer" some think it is, but so far as I can tell, that is the only thing that has changed noticeably since 5 weeks ago (the hospital numbers have gradually been going in the right direction for a while now).

I'm ambivalent about the Pac returning to play; however, I do not begrudge any conference (including the Pac) for giving it a go.  And I wish them all well.

And remember, college football may still not have a complete season this year.  There is a long way to go.  So this author, and you, and others who agree with his take may still have the opportunity to say "Bad idea.  I told you so.  Never should have tried it, etc."

P.S. We've discussed in a separate thread the player "who died of Covid" in another thread, so no need to re-hash that, beyond to say that even assuming death attribution was correct, there was no definitive reason to tie that death to playing football.