Kevin Warren, the commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, was at his home near Minneapolis one morning this month when President Donald Trump made a hastily arranged call to him.
The president has assuredly not forgotten the NBA and the NFL, as he has railed against social justice protests by athletes in those leagues to try to galvanize his base of white voters. But the geography of college football’s partial shutdown, a consequence of the decentralized nature of decision-making in the sport, has made gridiron politics irresistible.
NCAA President Mark Emmert said he had not talked with the White House since April. And both he and Denis McDonough, a former chief of staff to President Barack Obama who was on the NCAA’s top board until last month, both said that the association’s decisions in recent months had not been made because of lobbying by any elected officials.
The Big Ten’s move left Trump aides bombarded with requests for White House intervention. Many of the pleas went to Timothy Pataki, a senior official who played lacrosse at Ohio State and remained close to the school, among the most vocal in its opposition to the decision not to play on time this fall.
“It’s fair to say that he has a desire to have Big Ten sports return to competition,” said Warren, who recalled describing to the president the web of considerations that the league must resolve before holding games. The Biden campaign has sought to fault Trump with an internet video tailored to four battleground states where college football has been postponed, each featuring an empty stadium shot at a flagship school and concluding with the claim that Trump “put America on the sidelines.” The campaign has also deployed prominent athletes to attack Trump for his response to the virus and the cancellation of sports.
But he said he believed most of the angst among people around fall sports could be traced to tradition and pride in college athletics. While there is clear frustration over the lack of football, it’s less clear who is getting the blame.
Empty stadiums and arenas is the reason why there’s no leadership from the top.
NuStar-sideling Louisville is somehow closer to crash the small town S North Dakota
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