Marquette reacts as NCAA grants extra eligibility to spring student-athletes
In the course of a few days college athletics changed forever.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it,” says Marquette athletic director Bill Scholl.
While so many sports fans are still wrapping their heads around what happened, Scholl has to pivot and figure out, what happens next.
“This thing is changing so quickly.”
The most recent change is huge. The NCAA is granting an extra year of eligibility to spring student athletes.
“It provides the student athletes what they should be provided with which is another season. They deserve to have a senior year and they didn’t have one.”
Scholl completely agrees with the decision, but like everything else it raises more questions.
“It’s not as simple as it sounds.”
Especially with schools expected to lose millions of dollars in income because of the canceled basketball tournaments.
“It sounds so easy on the front end ‘oh of course they deserve their senior years and they do’ but now you think about the freshmen, sophomores and juniors and now there’s a whole other class coming back and maybe this was the year they were going to be on the field or on the court, not to mention the financial piece of it all.”
As for the fall, Marquette is planning for business as usual. The women’s soccer team is first on the schedule with a game on August 23rd, for now.
“We’re cognizant of the fact that it could go longer. You also hear talk now that there could be a resurgence in the fall. Are we having those conversations? We certainly are. We’re also praying that’s not the case.”
Bad news for Golden Eagles fans hoping for one more year from Markus Howard, the NCAA is not giving extra eligibility to winter student athletes.