On Tuesday, Nov. 8, the NCAA canceled athletic practices for all Division II teams in an effort to give student-athletes time to vote.
Senior and captain of the men’s tennis team, Tyler Conrad, is the president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at Hillsdale College. Present on all NCAA college campuses, this group represents student-athlete interests to the NCAA. Conrad explained the SAAC voted last year to cancel practices on election day.
“Some people did believe it could be very difficult for sports that are currently in season to go out, wait in line, and vote,” Conrad said. “If you have classes all morning, all afternoon, and practice in the evening, by the time you get done, the polls are almost closed.”
For students planning to vote in-person, this legislation is supposed to give them the time to drive home and fill out their ballot. But, Hillsdale College is located in rural Michigan, and as junior Caroline Holmes described, most student-athletes vote via absentee ballot.
“A considerable percentage of the student-athletes on this campus, and probably most other division II schools, are out of state or live at least two hours away,” Holmes said. “For you to travel home, vote, and drive back in the allotted practice time, that’s not actually feasible.”
Out of the 386 student-athletes at Hillsdale College, about 3% of them live within an hours driving distance. Both Holmes and head football coach Keith Otterbein noticed that most athletes use absentee ballots to vote, so they aren’t driving to polls on election day.
“You can’t fix stupid, and sometimes the NCAA is stupid in what they administer,” Otterbein said. “Most kids don’t go to school in the hometown that they live, so they’re going to do an absentee ballot anyway if they want to vote.”
For teams in the middle of their season or in postseason, the cancellation affected practice schedules and preparations for upcoming games. Holmes described the swim team’s adjustment, especially before their meet against the University of Findlay on Saturday.
“We have two morning practices a week, five afternoon practices, and we lift two times a week,” Holmes said. “With no practice on Tuesday, that affected most of the girls’ morning practice schedule, so they had to go and try to make up a lift session on their own. With such a big meet this weekend, it’s just chaotic, but we adjusted accordingly.”
Assistant women’s basketball coach, Brianna Brennan, described how the decision did not impact their practice schedule since they’re in the beginning of their seasons.
“It gives us one less day to prepare for our upcoming games, but truly is not detrimental to us,” Brennan said. “It is more likely to negatively impact fall sports due to those teams preparing for conference tournaments and NCAA tournaments.”
Some fall sports, like the men’s cross country team, decided to continue with practice as normal and have a captains-led run on Tuesday.
“We just ended up organizing our own practice,” junior Alex Mitchell said. “The run was an hour, but we had our other warmup and recovery exercises. We had our conference meet last Saturday, so we’ve been recovering the last couple of days.”