Oh For It To Be Crossover Season Now

This is mid-November, which is known in the world of college athletics as "Crossover Season."

There's nothing quite as stressful for those who work in the business. Crossover Season comes twice a year, from the start of hockey season until the last fall team has finished playing and then again at the start of lacrosse season until the last winter team has finished playing.

These two crossovers are especially crazy in the Ivy League, where you can end up with nearly 20 teams playing more than 30 events in the course of a weekend.

They all need to be covered, whether that means by communications or events staffs or athletic trainers or administration. It can be a lot.

Some of TigerBlog's favorite moments in his time at Princeton have been the meetings to figure out who will cover what during these times. Those are always interesting.

As in: "you cover the men's soccer game and I'll start women's hockey until you can get there and then you have men's hockey too while I go to women's basketball and then he can cover women's soccer and then on and on and on and on."

Of course, each sport has its own sport contact. In crossover season, well, that often gets jettisoned in the name of making sure every game is staffed properly.

There was always great satisfaction in getting everything done without having to ask for outside help. TigerBlog and his Office of Athletic Communications (especially them) colleagues have covered events in pretty much every sport Princeton has to help make that happen.

And so that's what the last few weekends would have been. 

Opening of hockey seasons. Opening of basketball seasons. Possible NCAA events in field hockey, soccer, volleyball, men's water polo and cross country. Football season. Other winter sports mixed in.

Oh, and now that TB thinks about it, you can throw in the travel associated with the NCAA events as there are home winter events to be covered. It's a challenge. 

For the fall of 2020, there is no crossover season.

There was no fall season, as everyone got used to long ago. And now this past week came the announcement that there would be no Ivy League winter sports, or spring sports through at least February.

This was not easy news for anyone to hear. Or to give. 

Princeton president Christopher L. Eisgruber met with the head coaches and the athletes to give them the update himself. It's not what he wanted to have to say.

Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux Samaan, who has done an extraordinary job of guiding the athletic department through the COVID crisis (and TB does not say that lightly or say that because she's the boss), had to punctuate Eisgruber's remarks with her own. It's not what she wanted to say either.

First, it's important to understand that everyone in charge wants nothing more than to get Princeton back to business as usual, with the undergraduate experience punctuated with all of the campus life activities that are an ordinary part of the Princeton world. Included in that is intercollegiate competition, with all of its co-curricular benefits.

For the winter, that athletic competition will not happen.

This is crushing news for those who only get four years to do this. They are laser-focused young people who are Princeton athletes - and Ivy athletes - because they excel academically and athletically, and that's not a combination that was particularly easy for any of them. They came to Princeton to do both at the highest level because, as the first women's rowing captain, Amy Richlin, famously said nearly 50 years ago, "you wouldn't be at Princeton if you liked to do things the easy way."

Their athletic identities are hugely important to them, and they cherish the opportunity to wear the uniforms they wear. To have that taken away is heartbreaking for everyone involved. 

As TB heard the news, his own heart broke for every Ivy League athlete whose careers have been so disrupted. He's seen the big wins and the tough losses, but the one thing he's always taken for granted all these years was that there would be games to win or lose, not that some pandemic would come along and shut things down.

It won't be permanent. That's the good news. There will be games again. There will be championships to win. There will again be reason to marvel at the on-field ability of these young people, even as TB continues to marvel at their resilience and the strength of their character that has come out these horrible months.

It doesn't make the present any easier for those who are missing out.

Oh would TB love to be swamped in another crossover season right now.