Presidents’ Athletic Conference postpones football, most other fall sports

The NCAA Division III Presidents’ Athletic Conference is postponing “high- and medium-contact” sports including football, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball and men’s and women’s cross country, to the spring because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Women’s tennis and men’s and women’s golf, considered “low-contact” sports, are allowed to continue in the fall, pending future restrictions by the NCAA, and play conference schedules only.

The PAC is looking into having fall competitions in other sports in the “low-contact” category, such as outdoor track and field, and men’s tennis, which traditionally play in the spring.

Winter sports in the PAC will not start before Jan. 1, 2021.

“We wrestled long and hard before deciding to postpone competition in the high- and medium-contact sports … a difficult disruption for our student-athletes and coaches,” Dr. Calvin Troup, president of Geneva College and chair of the PAC Presidents’ Council, said in a news release. “We remain hopeful that conditions will permit us to include these sports safely in an expanded PAC athletic schedule this coming spring.”

The conference plans to monitor the evolving health crisis and adjust its guidelines where necessary.

“Our Presidents’ Council has indicated every intention of having our schools play football, soccer, volleyball and cross country league schedules to the greatest degree possible during the spring 2021 semester, with a continued highest priority on student-athlete health and safety,” PAC commissioner Joe Onderko said.

“We remain extremely hopeful that improved, more available and more cost-effective testing procedures for covid-19, if not an outright vaccine, will make spring competitions in these high-impact sports a much more viable option than in the fall. Moving all winter sports competitions until after January 1 also gives us a greater degree of confidence in both starting and finishing those seasons.”

The PAC is the latest area conference to shuffle its schedule as fall approaches. The Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference opted to move fall sports to the spring. The North Coast Athletic Conference suspended athletics until the end of December.

Pitt-Greensburg postponed fall sports with an eye toward bumping that season to the spring, while Carnegie Mellon also opted to postpone fall sports. Its home conference in every sport but football, the University Athletic Association, told schools they could schedule their own games outside of the conference.