Swim Poll of the Week: Should the NCAA Allow Winter Sports Seniors Another Year of Eligibility?
Channel: swimmingworldtv
Date: 2020-04-02

This is the Swim Poll of the Week for Wednesday April 1, 2020, sponsored by Strechcordz Swim Training Products. In our last poll, we wanted to know: Should the NCAA Allow Winter Sports Seniors Another Year of Eligibility After Losing Their Final Championships?

The coronavirus pandemic caused the 2020 NCAA winter championships to be cancelled across all sports and most schools across the United States have shut down for the remainder of the semester. The majority of the spring sports season was cancelled and the NCAA announced they would be giving those student athletes an extra year of eligibility in order to make up for lost time.

But the NCAA did not allow an extra year of eligibility to the winter sport athletes that lost their championships to the pandemic, which has not sat well with those athletes. NC State's Coleman Stewart wrote an open letter to the NCAA asking for clarification regarding their decision so he could get started on his professional plans or continue to prepare for a potential fifth year.

Texas' Maxime Rooney and teammate Jack Collins also wrote a letter to the NCAA with anecdotes from fellow senior student athletes who lost out on their last championship competitions to the virus, asking for a fifth year of eligibility so they can end their careers on their own terms.

Would it be fair for the seniors of winter sports to be granted an extra year of eligibility so they can finish their seasons at a championships or is it too complicated?