Eastern and central North Carolina were battered over the past weekend by Hurricane Florence. Much of the coast is still affected by flooding leftover from heavy rain and wind, and parts of central North Carolina, including areas in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, are still working to bring back power and clear out flooded areas.
Leading up to the weekend, several schools intending to play Saturday football games in North Carolina, including NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University, preemptively canceled their upcoming sporting events. Some may remember the slippery game against Notre Dame two years ago during Hurricane Matthew, which took place amidst winds exceeding 20 miles per hour and sheets of rain battering the players.
With that ill-advised performance in mind, I’m glad that the weekend game against West Virginia was canceled as a precaution.
I’ve always been baffled at the lengths that athletics departments, often spurred on by sports fans, will go to ensure that their favorite forms of entertainment continue to take place, even if it means putting players at risk. These actions are also confirmation, in a sense, that player welfare is lower on the list of priorities than fan appeasement or profits.
Virginia Tech’s tweets last week are a prime example of prioritizing fans and profit over the safety of the players. Slated to play ECU at VT on Saturday, Virginia Tech’s football staff and fanbase expressed deep disappointment at the decision to cancel the game. The VT football team even tweeted that, “Hokies are waterproof,” in reference to their 34-3 win against UNC-CH during Hurricane Matthew, a tweet which was later deleted.
VT’s athletic director, Whit Babcock, also stated that he wished that ECU had waited until Wednesday to call off the game, again showing that VT’s priorities are in need of rearranging.
At least this weekend, NC State and other North Carolina universities made the right call to cancel their games and focus on the safety of the players (and coaches), their families and the spectators.
In an interview, head coach Dave Doeren stated that approximately one-third of the team stayed in the team hotel, while other players were sent home.
“Those players that couldn’t go with a teammate or wanted to stay in Raleigh were going to go with us to a team hotel,” Doeren said. “We just felt like if they were either with their parents or with us, obviously you’re planning for the worst… We felt like that was the best way to know that everyone was safe.”
While some gave North Carolina schools flak for not waiting longer to cancel the games, making the decision to cancel on Tuesday allowed for players to make travel arrangements, among other things.
“We went from preparing for a really good football team in West Virginia,” Doeren said, “to all of the sudden having to put plans in place for 115 players and all of our staff, our families, where we’re going to be, how are we going to track these guys, how we’re going to make sure they’re safe.”
Ultimately, despite the fact that the Triangle seems to have avoided the worst of the storm damage from Hurricane Florence, canceling the game was a decision that ensured the safety of the players and coaches, as well as the fans, to an extent. Missing one day of college football and tailgating in favor of staying out of the way of a hurricane should be a no-brainer decision. Anyone who thinks otherwise should reevaluate their priorities.
