The NCAA Board of Directors voted to approve a blanket waiver Friday allowing all fall sport student-athletes to receive an additional year of eligibility and another year to complete it.
The waiver will apply to all fall student-athletes regardless of when they play or if they end up participating in their sport at all, according to Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic.
All schools are prohibited from canceling or reducing athletic scholarships if they decide not to participate due to COVID-19, according to the release. If a fall sport senior athlete takes advantage of the additional year provided, it will not count against their team’s financial aid limits in 2021-22.
“We want to provide opportunities for student-athletes whenever possible,” said NCAA Division I acting board chair Denise Trauth in the release. “We understand it will be complicated and different, and we’re not certain how it will look. But we believe it’s important to try to give students that championship experience.”
Alongside an added year of eligibility, the board also accepted multiple council-recommended protections for the athletes that will go into effect immediately.
One of these protections prohibits schools from requiring student-athletes to waive legal rights regarding COVID-19 to participate in athletics.
All schools will be required to review current insurance coverage for all fall student-athletes. Schools must notify all fall student-athletes about the risks associated with their sport as outlined in the Resocialization of Collegiate Sport document and inform all student-athletes how the mandates in the document are being handled on their campus.
The Pac-12 recently postponed all athletic activities until Dec. 31 due to COVID-19 related concerns. Other conferences, such as the Big 10 Conference, Mountain West Conference and Mid-Atlantic conference also recently postponed their fall sports seasons.
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