On Saturday, the University of North Carolina announced that it would allow on-campus athletic activities to resume this week for 8 of its athletics programs, while the rest, including swimming & diving, remain “on pause.”
The school’s fall-season sports of cross country, field hockey, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, and women’s volleyball is allowed to resume activities on Sunday, while football has chosen to return to practice on Monday, August 24.
Men’s and women’s basketball, which like swimming are winter sports, are also being allowed to resume athletic activities on Sunday in order to prepare for competition.
The other 18 athletics programs at the school remain on a “pause” that was initiated last week after an early outbreak of new coronavirus cases among the student body.
As a result, all athletics activity was put on pause last week and classes were moved mostly virtual as the school looked to stabilize the health situation on campus.
The school has not yet given any indication about when other sports, including swimming & diving, might be able to resume athletics activities.
The sports returning are among the best in the UNC athletics program. The field hockey team, for example, are 8-time NCAA Champions, including having won the last two titles, and haven’t lost a game in more than 2 seasons.
The men’s soccer team has won 2 NCAA Championships, while the women’s soccer team is one of the most successful across any sport in the NCAA with 22 all-time national championships.
The men’s basketball team has won 6 NCAA titles, including most recently in 2017, while the women’s team has won 1.
The ACC is one of 3 of the Power 5 conferences that dominate college athletics that is working on pushing ahead with a fall athletics season. They will be joined by the SEC and the Big 12, in spite of the NCAA saying there won’t be fall NCAA Championships.
Last season, in the Tar Heels’ first year under new head coach Mark Gangloff, the UNC men finished 7th out of 12 teams while the UNC women finished 4th out of 12 teams. For both teams, that was a 3-place improvement over the 2019 championships.
The state of North Carolina has seen a big spike in new cases since reopening colleges over the last 2 weeks. So far, at least UNC, NC State, and East Carolina have announced a move of classes online, while Appalachian State has also seen a cluster of new cases.
Orange County, where UNC is located, is seeing an average of 54 daily new cases, which is a rate of 36 per 100,000 of population. People between 18 and 24 make up 15% of North Carolina’s positive tests for coronavirus, but that number is as high as 37% in Watauga County, home to Appalachian State.
University of National Champions
…and academic fraud
University of National Chumps
Sick zinger.