Announcement on Fall Sports at Carnegie Mellon
Carnegie Mellon Athletics will not participate in intercollegiate athletics competition this fall. The university announced its decision on Wednesday afternoon.
“Over the past few months, we have explored every possible avenue for a safe return to play,” said Director of Athletics Josh Centor in an e-mail message to Carnegie Mellon student-athletes. “In the message that I wrote to you last month, I noted that the health and safety of our students, staff and community members are at the forefront of every decision we make. With that as our guiding principle, we cannot appropriately return to sport at this time.”
The fall decision includes participation in men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, football and volleyball. Decisions on winter and spring sports have not yet been made. Carnegie Mellon’s Return to Play Task Force, which includes university administrators and team physicians, will continue to meet and plan for the future.
“In the coming weeks, I will share more information for how we will engage our teams throughout the semester. We will be active, we will learn, we will find ways to come together,” Centor said. “Our staff will do everything we can to find opportunities for our student-athletes to pursue their passion for team and sport this coming semester, despite these unprecedented and disappointing circumstances.”
Carnegie Mellon’s position follows a decision by the University Athletic Association, which was also announced today. The Presidents Council approved the following resolution regarding 2020 Fall Scheduling among UAA member institutions:
“Despite exceptional work over the last several weeks to develop UAA fall schedules that would provide substantial UAA competition in a manner that assumes no air travel and allows for bus travel only within limited distances and travel times, it has become regrettably apparent that holding onto a mandated UAA schedule is no longer viable. It makes sense, at this time, to move away from a conference-adopted schedule. While we will continue to try to maintain UAA playing relationships as a priority, each UAA institution needs the flexibility to find additional local sport partners with which to compete, as they are able.”
“I am grateful to UAA Executive Director Dick Rasmussen and the athletics directors from across the UAA’s eight member schools for their dedicated work over the past six weeks to consider how best to support our scholar-athletes, who bring such vitality and school spirit to our communities,” said Farnam Jahanian, President of Carnegie Mellon University and Chair of the UAA Presidents Council. “While it is heartbreaking to contemplate a fall semester without UAA competition, our commitment to student health and safety is at odds with a conference schedule that would require travel at significant distances. We look forward to a return to play within the UAA as soon as we can, and I am confident that we will be stronger than ever when we can once again compete.”
The Athletic Administrators Committee intends to address winter sports that begin practice and competition later in the fall semester (e.g., basketball) once their respective institutional policies on return to campus, travel, and gatherings are further defined.
For up-to-date coronavirus information from the university, please visit Carnegie Mellon’s Coronavirus alert webpage.