By Rich Palzewic
Sports Editor
DE PERE – The Midwest Conference (MWC), which St. Norbert College is a member of, announced it will suspend league competition through at least Dec. 31, 2020.
The presidents of the 10 member institutions decided in coordination with representative athletic directors to protect the health and safety of student-athletes, coaches, staff and administration, their families and broader campus and local communities.
“We did everything we could over the past couple of months to develop schedules, event management protocols and testing policies so we could compete this fall,” said MWC Executive Director Heather Benning in a released statement. “However, due to the recent sustained surge of cases across the country, and a lack of guaranteed access to timely and reliable testing with the frequency recommended by the NCAA, the conference doesn’t feel it’s in a position to sponsor intercollegiate athletic competition at this time.”
Tim Bald, St. Norbert athletic director, met with the media via Zoom to discuss the decision.
“This is not the position we wanted to be in,” said Bald. “The COVID-19 pandemic is making the call on this, and we come to this decision after months of working on it. We’ll move forward and make the best of it for our student-athletes.”
Member institutions may allow opportunities for practice, small-group training, skill development and/or strength and conditioning.
“We’ll be having practices and expect our coaches to engage the athletes in those,” Bald said. “Maybe it won’t be to the extent it would have been preparing for normal competitions, but we’ll come up with some ideas. We want to feed the competitive part of it.”
Engagement in non-conference competition remains at the discretion of individual institutions.
Bald said that part of the plan is more complicated.
“For example, if we wanted to have a game against Lawrence University (in Appleton), that option is out there,” he said. “It wouldn’t be counted as a conference competition, however, once we do that, we’d also have to meet the requirements the NCAA has put forth in regards to testing and other things. Like the NBA (National Basketball Association) bubble, once you leave, you have to put in all the procedures to negate the spread of the disease. Once you open that door, things get dicey. I don’t know how much of that will take place at St. Norbert.”
Bald said there wasn’t much talk about moving the fall sports to the spring, but that could be a possibility moving forward.
“It was mentioned quickly, but then we moved on to the here and now,” he said.
Division III college athletics is different than Division I in terms of eligibility.
“In Division I, you get five years with a redshirt year to compete in four seasons,” said Bald. “In Division III, once you practice, you burn a year of eligibility in competition. This year, the NCAA is allowing Division III athletes to practice and not burn that season.”
MWC officials said they will continue to monitor those factors impacting the decision for suspension of the fall and winter sports seasons, and take action to resume athletic competition when it’s deemed safe to do so.
“A return date to athletics has to be determined by the states and the local health officials,” said Bald.
Bald said the conference has its hockey call during the first week of August.
The hockey season was supposed to begin Oct. 30.
Dan Lukes, St. Norbert sports information director, said the last athletic event at the college was a baseball game March 8.
He said this will be the longest hiatus of athletics at the college since the 1944-45 school year.