Kaylie Collins watched from the bench as the USC women’s football team won the NCAA championship in 2016. The goalkeeper made a red blouse in her first year when the Trojans won their NCAA title at the time. Since then, the purpose has been proposed to help the program to its third victory.

Now Major, Collins is sure he’ll have his last chance to do it.

While individual meetings make the decision to play fall sports amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with football at the forefront, those disparate decisions have already had major implications for NCAA tournaments for all autumn Olympic sports. NCAA President Mark Emmert said Thursday in a video posted on Twitter, “We can’t now, right now, have NCAA fall championships” because of the number of schools that have retired by the fall.

The Board of Governors has stated that if 50% or more of the eligible groups in a specific department cancel their fall seasons, there cannot be an NCAA championship in the fall. Emmert said all NCAA Division I fall sports, which are still FBS football, have fallen below that threshold as more than a dozen conferences, adding Pac-12, Big Ten, Mountain West, Mid-Atlantic and Ivy League, have postponed fall sports.

By deciding to suspend all sports until 2020, the Pac-12 expected to move the competitions in the spring. Now, the convention that prides itself on Olympic good sporting fortune will have to wait to see if they follow the championships.

“We are competitive athletes. We have to win everything,” Collins said. “Not having that as a guiding force, our compass, would be difficult.”

The Division I Council will officially decide on the NCAA Fall Championships on August 21, and if championship tournaments are postponed, rescheduling of the data will be done at a later date.

Emmert discussed the option to use predetermined tournament sites, similar to “bubbles” created through professional leagues. There may be smaller sizes.

Moving the NCAA championships would be a logistical nightmare, admits UCLA men’s water polo coach Adam Wright, but the same can be said for most of this year. The coach who took the Bruins to three national championships in 4 years hopes that the NCAA, schools and meetings can combine to find an artistic solution that brings out at least a bright spot from a dark year in a different way.

“I’d give them a lot in what’s been a difficult year,” Wright said. “I think everyone is watching Grade 21 and I hope things get better, but how can we catch something positive for those student-athletes?”

The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, the convention overseeing groups such as UCLA, USC, California and Stanford in water polo, said on a Wednesday postponing its men’s water polo season that the NCAA’s resolution of fall championships will tell the convention for winter. or spring schedules. For some apprentices, a spring season can be an exclusive challenge: USC’s Wright and Marko Pintaric also train women’s groups in their respective schools in the spring after training men in the fall.

Both coaches say that if there is overlap, your staff can join in to get the job done.

“Let’s say we have a season, which we don’t know yet, but I hope we can have the format that suits either of us,” Pintaric said. “But whatever the format, including the coaches, we still have enough experience and we revel in leading both groups with the same success.”

The Pac-12’s resolution on Tuesday to postpone autumn sports raised more questions than answers. There are seniors on their way to early graduation who will now have to look for minors or graduate systems to remain eligible for a delayed spring season. There are considerations on how to manage a list full of additional but limited eligibility through NCAA scholarship limits for the coming years. There are football players who hoped to start their professional careers. The drafts of NWSL and MLS regularly take up positions in January.

Spring sports groups suffered a litany of similar disorders when their seasons were canceled in March. Having to deal with the same cases five months later is “surreal” for USC women’s soccer coach Keidane McAlpine.

“It’s frustrating,” McAlpine said, “but that’s where we are.”

Pac-12 cited recent findings that connected the new coronavirus to myocarditis, a central disease that causes inflammation of the central muscle, as an explanation for why to discontinue fall sports. Research on the new virus and its long-term effects is still developing, however, the dangers of the unknown were too wonderful to dismiss, even when athletes become faithful to take their daily temperature, complete surveys and dress in a uniform. Mask. voluntary training.

“The logistical aspect of me is understanding, ” said Collins. “If I had been put on this stage where I had to take that resolution and had the physical form of the athletes at stake, I would have taken the same resolution. But it is the maximum emotional aspect of me that is hurt, disappointed and frustrated.”

The set of feelings also contained some hope. The fall season will be delayed and will condense without non-conference games, the coaches said. A spring season may still seem more normal.

For men’s football, this gives the game the ability to verify its proposal for a split season. The concept of starting a season in the fall and finishing it in the spring has been around for years. The plan, which will be put to the NCAA vote in April before being presented at the COVID-19 vortex, proposed in the interest of player safety.

Instead of condensing one season in 3 months, betting twice in 3 days, the plan reduces the number of games and redistributes them into two semesters: two off-competition games and 12 normal season games in the fall and one out of -Competition Game and 8 regular season games. Spring. Postseason tournaments would be held in the spring.

“In a lot of tactics we play in the spring, it’s not something we haven’t talked about before,” said UCLA head coach Ryan Jorden. “I am disappointed that we do not have an autumn season, however, over the next 3 or 4 months, I feel that it is probably the most productive resolution due to all the uncertainty of even watching for the fall season to begin. I look at that with a lot of optimism. »

At this point, any spring season remains a hopeful hypothesis. This is based on advances in the virus, immediate testing and innovations in the number of cases. It’s even more confusing at the school level, where schools respond to county officials, their meetings, and the NCAA.

Collins said the Trojans were “exhausted” through the emotional roller coaster. They tried to remain in a position only to be rejected several times when practice was delayed and non-convention games were cancelled. Allowing them to be together, even if they can only move from socially remote positions, would alleviate the intellectual challenge, Collins said, because hope for a championship falters.

“I think everyone has this resilience to return to a positive mood,” Collins said. “[The NCAA Tournament] will be a driving force for people, like OK, if there’s an option for that, then we have to stay ready.”