On March 30, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted to give athletes whose seasons were affected by the coronavirus pandemic an extra year of eligibility, ESPN’s Mark Schlabach reported.
This ruling not only affects seniors who were in the middle of their final seasons, but it applies to all other student-athletes of any year. Furthermore, schools’ teams will be allowed to expand their rosters to account for incoming recruits who were set to replace seniors.
Financial-aid flexibility will also play a factor, as schools, not the NCAA, will be allowed to determine whether athletes who would have run out of eligibility after this spring receive less or equal financial aid.
This new ruling applies to spring sports; they are as follows: baseball, softball, tennis, golf, outdoor track and field, lacrosse, rowing, men’s volleyball, beach volleyball and women’s water polo. Winter-sports players who had their seasons cut short, like UCF’s men’s and women’s basket ball teams, are not applicable.
“The council’s decision gives individual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level,” said Division I Council Chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania. “The board of governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that.”
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The American Athletic Conference initially suspended spring sports on March 12 before completely cancelling all sports on March 16. The UCF Knights’ baseball team and its softball team were having some of their best seasons ever, as the former went 15-3 and recorded a weekend-series sweep of then-No. 8 Auburn University; the latter posted a 21-5-1 record, including a 12-3-0 home record.
For more on the Knights, as they look to reorganize their spring-sports athletes’ scholarships, follow Victor Tan on Twitter at @NDR_VictorTan.
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