The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) announced on Tuesday (hours after the California State University system said most fall classes will be conducted online) the cancellation of all fall sports for its 12 Division-II members, including Cal State San Marcos. Meanwhile, 30 miles south of San Marco, at San Diego State, one of 23 members in the CSU system, plans to welcome back student-athletes by July 7.
“I don’t know that it necessarily impacts us at all,” San Diego State athletics director John David Wicker said regarding the online classes announcement. “We knew that we were going to be in some form of virtual classes this fall, anyway. They’re definitely still going to have classes on campus."
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
Wicker's comments echo similar ones made by other FBS ADs and conference commissioners, hinting that a certain number of on-campus classes—or any on-campus classes at all—aren't required for athletic competition, which directly contradicts NCAA president Mark Emmert, who said last week there won't be sports without on-campus classes.
“We’re still working with campus and developing what our resocialization plan will look like to bring students back to campus so they can at least start working out,” Wicker said. “I basically wanted to pick a date that we could build to. The date [July 7] that made the most sense was the beginning of the summer session.”
And on that date, football student-athletes will be the first to return, doing so as a "test case" because they're the first student-athletes to return to campus in a normal summer. It would be eight and a half weeks before the Aztecs are scheduled to host Sacramento State in their regular-season opener, which falls in the line with the widely discussed eight-week timeline needed for players to prepare for the season.
