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The NCAA announced on Monday that it is granting an additional year of eligibility to spring-sports athletes who had their 2020 seasons cut short due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The NCAA canceled all spring sports on March 12. All ongoing winter sports were canceled at the same time, but no winter athletes will be given additional eligibility.
At UNLV, spring sports are baseball, softball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s swimming and women’s track. The NCAA will expand scholarship limits in order to accommodate returning seniors and incoming freshmen.
UNLV baseball coach Stan Stolte greeted the news as a positive development.
“This is good,” Stolte said. “The kids, they put all their life into playing four years of college athletics. Now they’ll each have that opportunity. Or if they don’t, I think it’s a good situation for the kids to put it in their hands and let them decide what they want to do instead of having it decided for them.”
There is a financial component to granting another year of eligibility for scholarship athletes, and the NCAA is leaving that to the schools to figure out. Each university will have to decide which players are welcomed back and how much scholarship money they will be given for the extra year.
UNLV athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois issued a statement regarding the ruling.
“Each of our student-athletes have a unique set of circumstances,” Reed-Francois said. “As such, we will work in conjunction with our coaches, student-athletes and those impacted on a case-by-case basis with the best interest of our student-athletes guiding our decision-making process."
Stolte said he and Reed-Francois have not discussed the potential cost of expanded scholarships.
“Nothing has been brought up on that issue,” Stolte said. “I’m sure that will be something that will factor into a lot of things going forward.”
The additional year doesn’t just apply to seniors; all spring athletes are eligible for another season. Seniors are obviously the most affected, though, and Stolte said he has yet to talk with his seniors about whether they’ll want to come back for another year. Some have already graduated, he said, and some are set to graduate following the spring semester, so he does not know whether those players would opt to come back for another season.
“It’s a case-by-case deal with us,” Stolte said. “Every kid is different. We’ve got one kid that’s going to go to Johns Hopkins and another one that’s going to graduate and try to join the police force. We’ve got to really talk to them now that we know the rules and the structure of how this is going to work and see if they want to come back and play or if they want to go out into the real world.”
Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.
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