With the sports world shutting down for coronavirus, here’s why one college wrestling tournament decided to keep goingThe National Collegiate Wrestling Association proceeded, with the top team’s coach calling the pandemic “overhyped” and “political.”
https://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/2020/03/14/faith-over-fear-while-the-ncaa-closed-shop-for-coronavirus-these-collegiate-wrestlers-were-grappling-in-allen/By Sam Blum
7:00 PM on Mar 14, 2020 — Updated at 7:19 PM on Mar 14, 2020
ALLEN — The Allen Event Center was host to the only show in town. And not just this town, but town after town, possibly the ZIP code, the county and the state. Heck, maybe even the country.
Sporting events are canceled because of efforts to contain the coronavirus. Churches are closing, casinos are being shuttered, TV shows have banished studio audiences, and states have enacted prohibitions on large gatherings.
That didn’t stop the National Collegiate Wrestling Association National Championships from occurring, with hundreds of athletes scheduled to participate under one roof and in close contact. Athletes who will soon travel back to home states as far as Washington and New York.
“I think a lot of this is driven by fear,” the NCWA executive director, Jim Giunta, said Friday on why he didn’t cancel the event. “We’re going to do everything in our power to create an environment that’s more than safe for our athletes. But after we do everything we can do, we’re going to operate on faith rather than fear.”
The event featured 84 colleges from around the country and 600-plus athletes. Schools as large as UCLA and Ohio State, and as small as Richland Community College. It’s the preeminent event for collegiate wrestling that is outside the jurisdiction of the NCAA, which has canceled all postseason competition through the 2020 spring and winter seasons.
Eleven schools never made it to the tournament because of coronavirus concerns, and around nine more schools pulled out before the competition began but had still made the trip to Allen.
But for the NCWA, the show still went on. Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and health experts around the world strongly suggested against large gatherings like the one held in Allen from Thursday through Saturday evening.
“I think when we start to cancel these events, the actual athlete and the hard work kind of fades away from them,” said UT- Arlington coach Collin Stroner, who noted that his concern about the coronavirus was “on the back burner.”
“It’s the event,” Stroner said. “ It’s just a basketball game. It’s just a hockey game. But for a lot of these guys and theirs, it’s their last match. … I’m really proud that we’re keeping this act on.”
Giunta noted the precautions being taken by the NCWA. There were many signs posted around the facility about best practices to prevent COVID-19, the coronavirus strain that has put much of the world’s activities on hold indefinitely.
The referees did not hold up the winner’s arm after a match, as is customary in wrestling. There were sanitization products at the scorer’s tables. Athletes were not permitted to practice on the competition mats, and because of that, they were allowed to be an additional pound over the maximum weight in their class.
And any athlete whose temperature was over 100.4 degrees would automatically be disqualified.
The reason given for referees not touching winner’s arms was to prevent the referee from potentially being a disease vector and passing it off to different athletes.
However, the competition mats were sanitized only three times per day. Once in the morning, once between sessions, and once at the end of the day. With thousands of matches occurring, often dozens of matches would take place without the mat being sanitized.
In addition, Giunta said no athletes had their temperature taken during the event. And he said the event wasn’t in communication with the CDC.
And while athletes weren’t permitted to practice on the competition mats, there was a single practice mat in a waiting area in the back of the arena being used by numerous athletes.
“From a philosophical perspective, do I think it’s overhyped? Yes, I do,” said Liberty University coach Jesse Castro about the fear generated by the coronavirus. “You know the talking points. We’ve dealt with this kind of stuff before. … We’re vigilant and we use common sense, but I refuse to live in fear. I’m not gonna do that.”
Castro, who brought 19 athletes to the event, said he believes part of the overreaction is related to ire directed at President Donald Trump. Castro said he concurred with his school president, Jerry Falwell Jr., who argued on Fox News earlier in the day that the coronavirus was being used by Democrats to impeach the president.
“Call me a conspiratorist or whatever,” Castro said. “Is that to minimize what’s going on? Absolutely not. But you cannot view this from a prism without being political to some degree. It’s too obvious.”
While the event was open to the public, and tickets were available for purchase, it did not draw a lot of outside spectators.
Many in the stands were teammates of wrestlers competing. Others had already been eliminated, but they were there to cheer on teammates. Some family members and coaches watched as well.
While Giunta claimed the event followed social distancing protocols, athletes in the waiting area were in tight quarters. And those in the stands didn’t proactively try to maintain space from one another.
The city of Allen, which runs the Allen Event Center, responded via spokeswoman Chelsey Aprill to a request for comment and said: “When we work with rentals, we typically defer to the organizer/host of the event to make decisions regarding cancellations or postponements, assuming the decision is not in conflict with our ability to provide a safe and secure environment.”
The spokeswoman also noted that enhanced disinfectants were in the restrooms, on doors and other surfaces. “This decision kept attendees and competitors in a controlled facility,” the spokeswoman said, “rather than dispersing throughout the community while they made unexpected adjustments to travel plans.”
For the athletes, the desire to compete is understandable. The NCWA championships might not be a competition that garners name recognition across America. But for the athletes who come to compete, it’s a goal a year in the making.
Wayne State College in Nebraska took a team bus 12 hours on Tuesday to compete. For Charisse Manley on Liberty, it was a chance to compete alongside her sister one final time.
“I’m just really thankful that they didn’t cancel it because I’ve worked so hard to get here,” Manley said. “I want an opportunity to put all my hard work to the test.”
A lot of emotion and hard work goes into this. These championships present an opportunity to win a trophy, garner All-American status. It’s a chance to compete.
“The work that we’ve put in, some of us have done it basically our whole lives,” said Wayne State wrestler Hunter Weiss. “I’ve done it since second grade. It’s gotten me through a lot of stuff in life. Big things that have happened in my life. … I’m grateful that I had the opportunity that the NCWA, our association, kept this on.”
Still, all pro sports and NCAA competitions in the United States have been suspended. NCAA March Madness, the College World Series won’t happen. Major League Baseball stopped spring training a month in, and the NBA and NHL stopped operations with a month until the playoffs. High schools across the country are making similar choices.
Those decisions come with a significant financial impact. Athletes across the country have expressed the emotional impact.
Unanimously, those leagues and organizations are saying the risks are not worth the reward. The NCWA, though, continued to operate.
“We’ll see, obviously, after this, if any kids contracted anything here,” said Richland Community College coach Bill Neal, who is 79. “Young people aren’t the ones who are the most liable on this. … And again about 94% survive with no problems at all. The odds are strongly in your favor.”
Is that risk, however small or large, worth it to compete?
“There’s such a passion in the sport of wrestling,” Neal said, “that people are kind of willing to take risks like this as long as it’s not a real high numbers type of a thing.”