Fresno State, Mountain West Conference suspend spring sports due to coronavirus

Fresno State suspended, but did not cancel, its spring football practices on Thursday after the Mountain West Conference suspended all of its spring sports competitions and championships due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus.

“It’s a very tumultuous time for our community, for our nation, and we want to safeguard our community and be good partners,” athletics director Terry Tumey said. “We feel that to be in support of that we need to do things that are going to protect our students, our staff members, our coaches and our community at large, so we’re not putting people in harm’s way by allowing them to travel and do things like that for competitions.

“It’s a small step, but a step that needs to be taken for safety.”

The conference left it to its members to determine whether to proceed with practice and training activities including spring football and whether to participate in NCAA championship events.

The Fresno State men’s tennis team had a match Thursday against Gonzaga and the women’s lacrosse team had a match against Yale, the last Fresno State athletic events for the foreseeable future.

The Bulldogs baseball and softball teams hit the road Thursday, departing for a nonconference series at Oklahoma State and a Mountain West series at Boise State, respectively. Both teams were making arrangements to return to Fresno, rather than play those series.

Tumey said Fresno State’s five wrestlers and one diver who qualified for NCAA championship events would be allowed to participate – before the NCAA canceled all of its winter and spring championships.

The women’s basketball team also had secured the conference’s automatic bid to the WNIT, but that also has been canceled.

Those holding tickets to Fresno State baseball and softball games can receive a refund through the athletics ticket office.

A determination how and when to proceed with spring football practices in a safe environment, Tumey said, could be made as early as the middle of next week.

It is, he said, a very fluid situation.

“We’re going to gather and reassess what is happening from practice segments,” Tumey said. “Nothing is happening in the short term, right now, so we’re going to come back next week and think about how people in non-competitive frameworks can continue to support the student-athlete experience. The most important piece that we want to maintain is the academic side, where the academic offering is still there for our student-athletes.

“Then we look at how we can put safeguards into place to allow them to move forward and progress in athletic activity.”

Natnional cancellations

Across the country, every Power Five Conference canceled its basketball tournaments, as well as the American Athletic Conference, the American East, Atlantic 10, Big Sky, Conference USA, Mid-American and WAC.

The Mountain West played its basketball tournaments last week with Utah State winning the men’s championship and Boise State the women’s title.

The NCAA canceled its championship events later Thursday afternoon.

At some point the eligibility of student-athletes who are losing a season of competition will come into play, among a myriad of issues. But losing a season of competition hurts.

Josh Hokit, one of the five Fresno State wrestlers to qualify for the NCAA championships, had planned to return for a senior season of football in 2020. That plan had to be scrapped due to injuries last season – he played in all 12 games rather than take a redshirt season, carrying the football just 75 times for 275 yards with nine touchdowns.

Now, he has lost a shot at a national championship in wrestling.

The Fresno State softball program also is off to a 21-4 start and ranked No. 12 in the NCAA Softball RPI ratings.

“I’m going to tell them what I tell them every day,” Tumey said. “I’m going to tell them how much I care for them and how much I love them as Bulldogs. They’re wonderful people and we are blessed to serve them and to be able to support them not only in their athletic endeavors, but in the academic efforts and we’ll continue to be there for them.

“That is a tough blow, because we have held out hope of a possibility there would be some way to mitigate these cancellations or the suspension of play in order to have some semblance of a season for, for not just the softball program, but for all of our programs. It’s unfortunate that’s going to come to fruition, but we’re going to be here to support them.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 11:22 AM.