'It's like a science fiction movie.' UK heavy hitters discuss return of sports amid pandemic.

Jun. 26--As colleges across the country work to plot a path forward amid the coronavirus pandemic some high-profile members of the University of Kentucky community engaged in a panel discussion focused on the challenges facing athletics departments in the wake of COVID-19.

The main takeaway? There's growing optimism that college sports will return this fall, but competition will look much different than it has in the past -- and it might perhaps never look the same.

UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart, former Kentucky volleyball star Leah Edmond and UK graduate and communications mogul Jim Host on Thursday were part of a Zoom event called "Great Teachers on Great Challenges Series: College Sports and Campus Crises: A Legacy of Service and Adaptation." The discussion touched on the surreal and sudden halt of sports in March as the pandemic picked up steam and the effort to safely resume competition.

Though Edmond was able to finish her senior season before the pandemic shut down sports, the aspiring professional volleyball player and future educator's plans were nevertheless thrown into disarray.

"Going into my last senior semester I was looking forward to student-teaching and also training and getting ready to pursue a pro career," Edmond said. "I was unable to finish being in the classroom with my students so I had to do that online, which was really difficult because it's hard to teach when your kids are so far away ... Long-term, I had planned on going overseas (for) a pro career and realizing that this might not be the safest option for me I decided against that. So it kind of just changed everything that I was planning on doing when I graduated."

'It was a disaster'

Barnhart, who was was a member of the NCAA Men's Basketball Selection Committee this past season and will be the committee's chair for the 2020-2021 season, spoke about the difficult decision in March to cancel the NCAA Tournament.

"There's certain places that you know where you were when it happened. At 12:28 on March 12 I know exactly where I was. We had taken the vote as a committee to stop the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. It will be forever indelible in my mind," Barnhart said. "It was a disaster, it was a really tough moment. But it was also an indelible moment when you began to realize the impact that sport played in the focus on the virus."

The night before the decision to cancel the tournament, two NBA players tested positive for COVID-19.

"Later that evening it became very apparent that the NBA was suspending their season. That was a red flag and it began to take shape after that. All of a sudden, sports is driving the conversation," Barnhart said. "It was really difficult to watch young people not have a chance. We had a really, really nice basketball team that I felt like could make a deep, deep run. That didn't happen and I was sad about that for our fan base. I was sad about that for our young people."

Jim Host, the founder of Host Communications -- which has longstanding marketing and broadcasting ties to college athletics -- touched on the difficulty of crafting plans to restart sports while the virus is affecting different states to varying degrees and those states have a patchwork of different guidelines related to quarantine procedures.

"I don't know how Mitch is going to be able to sort through all of the issues. I don't know how any athletic director, I don't know how any (university) president, is going to sort through the environment that we're in. I think it's like a science fiction movie," Host said. "I don't know how Mitch is going to sort through the issues that have to do with 'can we start football and if we start football do we have fans? And if we have fans how do we seat fans, how do we serve the fans, how do we handle all of the things like tailgating?' ... I don't envy him and I don't envy anybody that's involved in college sports these days trying to figure it all out."

Two pieces

Barnhart offered a glimpse at the process athletics directors and university officials are using in the effort to figure it all out.

"There's two pieces to this: there's return to activity and there's return to play," Barnhart said. "How do we return our young people in terms of voluntary workouts that allows their cardio, that allows their strength and conditioning, that allows their ability to sort of enjoy a little bit of their summer?

"Then there's the return to competition and that involves a lot more. How do we have contact in day-to-day practices?"

Barnhart said he's following guidance from medical professionals as he helps craft plans.

"Those medical practitioners are giving us guidance on all levels. We've taken their lead, put together a process and we've worked our way through the return to activity, we will then step into the return to play. For instance, our football team has come back in waves, our volleyball team has now had seven or eight players back and they're working their way into a full roster."

Eternal optimism of sports

Adding to the uncertainty is the recent decision by the NCAA Board of Governors to allow athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. Just as officials began to grapple with crafting a framework for athlete compensation, along came the pandemic to toss another curve ball into the mix. All things considered, Host believes college sports will be forever changed by these new developments.

"I think people are going to have to be much more innovative -- and I'm talking about networks and I'm talking about sports marketing agencies -- much more innovative working in conjunction with the universities and the NCAA and the SEC ... There's a lot of new things that I think you're going to see introduced that we've never seen before that I think will be applicable from now on. I'm not sure that we'll ever go back to a lot of the ways that events were presented in the past.

"I think you're going to see a lot of changes in the way events are presented and a lot of difference in the way television is presented and the way the game itself is presented. We're in for a brand new experience and something that we're having to make up as we go along ... It's not just the issue of COVID, it's the issue of real change in college athletics overall."

Though he isn't certain exactly what that new experience will look like, Host is confident college sports will return this fall.

"I am convinced and very optimistic that we're gonna have football this fall and basketball this year and all other sports," Host said. "I am convinced because I think we'll have a vaccine sooner rather than later, but more than that I'm convinced the eternal optimism of sports will carry this country forward for years to come."

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