Yep, and the main reason why they decided not to play, imo. If a school is playing and a player dies it will automatically be assumed he caught it and died as a result of playing football, and then someone will be held responsible for his death.
Exactly. I've been saying all along that the university Presidents who made that vote were thinking of their own school's reputations. If they are responsible for putting that player on the field and he dies, they get blamed. If it happens completely unrelated to football, they do not.
My GUESS if football players will be warned repeatedly and isolated in their dorm versus regular students who likely will be more likely to catch it, I think.
You have the odds of being infected times the odds of dying from it, pretty low odds, until you multiply by however many players and coaches are playing.
Coaches of course are at higher risk.
What I took away from that is that a 20 year old athlete, presumably in the lowest risk group, died from COVID complications.
Of course, he was a 355 lb lineman. Which he was, according to any BMI calculator you look at, grossly obese. But still athletic enough to play football, so clearly he wasn't "out of shape".
Does this mean that linemen and other high-BMI positions are at high risk despite being world-class athletes? I'm not sure, but it's something I've worried about. The IU lineman also had lasting complications but thankfully didn't die.
When playing the numbers game, I have a real hard time coming up with how 115~ish (on OSU's sideline) mostly quarantined people play a weekly game against 115~ish other mostly quarantined people is even remotely close to 115~ish not quarantined people (skipping the weekly game) and instead interacting with 60kish (OSU on campus population) not quarantined people on a daily basis?
(Both the amount of people they will be interacting with and the frequency of the interactions exponentially increase when not playing football. ie the chance of infection also exponentially increases.)
Add in they go from having daily wellness/temp checks, to having none.
Getting Covid tested 1-3 times a week, to not getting tested.
If a serious condition should arise; having immediate access to the best medical facilities, to waiting for hours/days for local care.
Having 20-60 structured hours in a safe environment, to being left to their own devices in the wild.
I'm still firmly in the camp that they are much, much safer (from covid) playing the game than not.
Why is it all or nothing?
In the offseason (but still on campus) do Ohio State football players get no support from the university, have "minders" to make sure they're completing their classes, have the training table, have access to the weight room and athletic facilities, have access to the same health facilities they have during the season, etc?
It's a false choice. These universities are already paying their scholarship, room and board, meals, etc. It's not like they are going to kick them to the curb just because the season is postponed.
