Fans gather to watch Rumble on the Rooftop in Chicago (Photo/Justin Hoch, jhoch.com)Last weekend's Rumble on the Rooftop in Chicago became wrestling's first substantial competition since the conference tournaments in mid-March. The meet was competed on a rooftop with limitations on size of crowd and a myriad interaction that might cause viral spread.
The match went down at a time that the United States has seen the single most daily cases since the virus began. In Texas, Arizona, and Florida the virus is almost totally out of control. While the virus hasn't changed to meet these new numbers, the behavior of those in America has. After 12 weeks of trying to social distance and the government enforcing closures and strict measures many of those mechanism had been undone. People have simply lost interest in following government guidelines.
According to this week's article on InterMat much of what happened at Rumble on the Rooftop can be seen as a microcosm of the United States' larger failure to organize behind an effective, life-saving response to COVID-19. USA Wrestling sent specific instructions on protocols to follow and yet none were met. According to the nurse at the event the lack of discipline in following protocol could lead to it becoming a super-spreader event.
Do we want this for our sport? Wrestling won't be taken from the earth because a pandemic has made it unsafe to practice or compete. In fact, the only way to safely return to practicing and competition is to have wholesale buy-in on wearing masks, social distancing, washing hands, getting tested, and believing scientists. Right now, due to unnecessary politicization of a deadly virus, the United States has the worst outbreak in the world. We are unable to travel to the E.U. and may of the things we might have been able to do by this point in a well-executed quarantine (like wrestling) simply are not available.
I miss jiu-jitsu. It's my connection to friends, an outlet for creativity, and a way to destress and decompress. I'm also someone who has had COVID-19 and could maybe even roll safely without fear of getting sick. However, I don't because it's not clear what is going on with this virus and the risk of transmission to friends and family is far too great.
On a recent podcast my jiu-jitsu professor (jiu-jitsu athletes call them "professor") Marcelo Garcia said something I hadn't thought about in regard to jiu-jitsu and the outbreak. In short, he said that jiu-jitsu trains its athletes for these moments. Marcelo's outlook on being in a bad position isn't that you fall back on aggression, but instead remain calm and think your way to a solution. Patience is required even when you are suffocating, because there is almost always air to breathe and enough blood to keep you awake. In COVID we can feel desperate and frustrates, but flailing in an unplanned counterattack against an invisible virus is not a solution.
Sitting back may not work well for an antsier and aggressive wrestling community. Offense is in our DNA. During the 90's when the outcry over program elimination prompted the wrestling community to fund an attack of Title IX. The community wanted the rules changed and the mechanisms eliminated -- in order to fix a problem most knew was unchangeable. But instead of thinking up a solution (women's wrestling!) we poured millions of dollars into legal fees and corporate-level brain damage.
We might be making the same mistakes with COVID-19. It's doubtful that we are going to look back and be thrilled that on some random June evening we were able to host two club teams on the top of a building. We will however look back and ask ourselves if that type of event was worth the risk of exposure, or that it made us look out of touch with those in need around the country.
We will wrestle again. But for now, let us all try to re-flatten the curve and get ourselves to place where we can test, contact trace, and travel overseas. To get there will require the discipline of patience, not the insecurity of haste.
To your questions …
Q: What do you think of some colleges canceling wrestling for first semester?
-- Mike C.
Foley: Each college and individual education institution will need to make the decision that is best for their local community, teachers, and students. There is no secret that all resources will be allocated to protect the idea of a football season. Without athletes having independent representation there is little chance that the players can stop the season, even if they fear for their safety.
That aside, I think that the few schools who have canceled it the first semester are really just actuating the most feasible outcomes for their schools from a financial perspective. The idea of mass nationwide travel to attend college when this week the United States saw the single most cases in a single day does not compute.
I feel sad for the wrestlers, but I don't see the sense in complaining. Parts of the country that didn't take this virus seriously -- and individuals who chose their "freedom" to not wear a mask over the needs of the common good -- have left us without the college season in the first semester.
Q: Could you see a scenario in which some states have high school wrestling this season and some do not?
-- Mike C.
Foley: That absolutely will happen. You can be all but certain that California, New York, Texas, and other large states will cancel their high school wrestling season should the outbreak not be under control by September. Currently there is no indication that the outbreak will be contained. I'd be surprised if more than Iowa, Oklahoma, and a few other Midwestern states held seasons. It won't be responsible to do so under these conditions.
Q: What do you think of the NJCAA's decision to move the season to one semester?
-- Mike C.
Foley: Harbinger.
MULTIMEDIA HALFTIME
Bekzod!
Grace Bullen
Q: What do you think of Boise State dropping swimming and baseball? They cut wrestling in part to fund baseball?!
-- Joe V.
Foley: The Boise State debacle is a test case in the positives (and negatives) of pinning the development of a college athletics' foundation around the success of football. The model has worked for Boise State. Long a regional player, they brought in Houston Nutt in the mid 1990's and moved up to Division I-A and joined a larger conference. Soon, Chris Peterson became their leader and Boise State was playing to packed stadiums and selling enough merchandise to keep the show going.
Then in 2018, with their football cash quickly diminishing, the school looked to baseball to be their lifeline to more conference and national money. The West Coast baseball scene is extremely lucrative and their thinking was they could recoup dollars on the diamond. To summon the cas hflow and Title IX compliance they chose to cut wrestling. The story has been well covered by Andrew Spey at FloWrestling and here at InterMat.
Today they announced that the baseball experiment was over. Too much money out with very little chance to recoup it in the COVID-19 era of no fans and football on the rocks.
The opinion here is that Boise State is the absolute shining example of what terrible leadership and lack of imagination can lead to at a Division I institution. The athletic departments are run by pseudo executives applying quasi-business approaches to their schools du jour as a means to trade their way up the NCAA hierarchy. The politics and relationships that dole out these jobs is as corrupt as any in the international business world, with seemingly no consequence.
The best run athletic programs are the ones that have prioritized the welfare of the student-athletes and the students. The worst, like Boise State, prioritize the idea that executives can find addition through subtraction. Their lack of ingenuity and spine have been exposed through COVID-19 and they should feel the shame that they've worked so hard to avoid.
Q: Do you think we will see a sportsbook pick up betting on Olympic level and/or college wrestling? Looks like BetDSI does not do it anymore.
-- John M.
Foley: I do. There have been some awesome odds in the past, but without new events it's impossible to predict their commitment level.
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