NCAA needs to offer redshirts to the seniors affected by coronavirus

The NCAA did the right thing by canceling the NCAA Tournament and all its spring championships in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but the next logical step would be offering redshirt status to any affected senior who wants it.

The inevitable finally happened on Thursday when March Madness was canceled and all other winter and spring sports championships were axed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

This means college baseball, softball, golfers, lacrosse, etc. had their seasons and careers end just as they were getting started. The NCAA did the right thing by canceling the NCAA Tournament, and they should do the right thing by providing a universal redshirt option for seniors whose seasons could not be completed.

While some of the nation’s most talented college basketball players wouldn’t exercise the option and pursue the draft, that option isn’t always available for baseball players or golfers, for example.

Granting a one-time redshirt exemption would give those athletes a chance to not only finish their careers on their own terms but it would also afford many of those seniors the opportunity to gain more education in the form of graduate programs. It is a true win-win, and it would create a tremendous opportunity for the athletes who were robbed of the chance to play the sport they love for a factor completely out of your control.

Take Oregon superstar Sabrina Ionescu who bypassed the WNBA Draft last spring because she had unfinished business and wanted to lead the Ducks to a national championship. That opportunity is gone. That factor is completely out of Ionescu’s control and she should not be penalized for the NCAA doing the smart thing during a pandemic.

Ionescu is going to go to the WNBA Draft but there are countless other seniors in the men’s and women’s game who won’t be professionals. There are countless seniors in non-revenue sports who won’t play sports after college. They should get the option to continue for another year in college.

There are obviously financial ramifications to this move, which would result in schools having to offer more scholarships to fill those needs, but this issue is about more than just money. Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt has a proposal of his own to try and address the financial ramifications of redshirts for impacted senior athletes.

To break down the points of Klatt’s opinion, note that a hardship waiver is an option but it would create problems with scholarship limits. Each sports program is allocated a certain number of scholarships per year and when seniors graduate coaches give those scholarships to the next class of players.

Retaining those seniors on scholarship would put the teams over the limit, so a one year grace period would be required by the NCAA to allow teams to exceed the current maximums. Once those seniors exhaust their eligibility, scholarship levels could return to normal.

The financial part is also interesting, and Klatt addresses it in two ways. The first is to have the NCAA contribute towards the cost of the additional scholarships so that the bill isn’t entirely footed by schools, and the other is to exempt the additional scholarships from Title IX requirements.

Title IX legislation requires schools to provide proportional representation in athletics for both men and women, so added scholarships could throw those considerations out of whack. A one-year waiver here would also allow the schools to retain their athletes without violating Title IX requirements.

The financial concessions will be massive for the NCAA, which is already slated to lose a ton of money from the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament. Yahoo reporter Charles Robinson also points out the NCAA has a significant rainy day fund and insurance policy in the event of March Madness being canceled so it isn’t like the NCAA can cry poor either.

The NCAA should take into account the massive PR win they will also get if they do the right thing for student-athletes who had the end of their careers taken away from them. NBA owner Mark Cuban may be one of the most popular figures in sports right now after he announced a plan to help pay his game-day workers while the season is suspended. Student-athletes have given the NCAA plenty over the years and the organization should do right by this group of seniors.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.

For more NCAA basketball news, analysis, opinion and features, check out more from the FanSided college basketball section to stay on top of the latest action.