FOND DU LAC, Wis. (Sabre Voice) – Sports fans are having a tough time during COVID-19 as they wonder if the sports they watch and/or play are going to continue during this pandemic. 

Throughout this experience, student athletes who play sports for the NCAA are seeing many restrictions on what they can and can’t do.  

Of the changes, sophomore lacrosse player Noah Musgrove noticed one of the most frustrating aspects was the amount of times it was required to get tested. Each day they have practice, students have to get their temperature taken and every two weeks, a COVID-19 test is also required.

“I would say the only bad thing is that we have to keep worrying about other players having COVID-19 and it spreading throughout the team. We had one person that caught COVID-19 and that’s when we had to do testing and it turned out that he didn’t spread it to any of us,” Musgrove said. “There’s also more planning to our practices, which is nice because we know exactly when we’re going to practice and we don’t have to worry about being at the same time as other teams.”  

Sophomore track and field recruit Allison Garcia noted that athletes have to wear masks at all times during their practices as well as adhere to social distancing practices by dividing the team into “ segments, so fewer people are surrounding each other.”  

“The part that I don’t like is that some of my friends are in different segments for track and field, so I don’t get to talk to them that much and it doesn’t feel too much like a fun practice,” said Garcia.  

The NCAA has restrictions for all teams to mitigate risk of spreading the virus like pushing the fall championship brackets to spring in hopes that the pandemic will settle before schools start to play each other. 

 Earlier this year, the American Athletic Conference announced that it was postponing competition and conference championships for men’s and women’s soccer, and volleyball to the spring of 2021, and was working to host championships for men’s and women’s cross country, men’s water polo, field hockey, and FCS football, according to the conference.  

“We were prepared to conduct the competition in the fall for men’s and women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball, but moving to the spring was in the best interest of our student-athletes as it will align our schedules to allow our teams to compete for national championships,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said in a news release.  

Other changes included approving “a blanket waiver granting all DI fall sport athletes an additional year of eligibility and an additional year to complete it,” according to the NCAA. More than half of  the football conferences had also kicked off their seasons.