Jake Procino
News editor
On Dec. 14, Willamette University [announced] that they decided to cancel the football and men’s and women’s basketball seasons for the entirety of the 2020-21 year in a joint statement with Lewis & Clark College. The decision comes after the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) [announced] earlier in December that “Full-contact sports are prohibited” until further notice. OHA defined full-contact sports as sports that involve “sustained close proximity or physical contact between participants, and includes but is not limited to football, rugby, wrestling, cheerleading, basketball, hockey, dance, water polo [and] men’s lacrosse.”
The status of other sports seasons is still up in the air. The Northwest Conference Presidents’ Council (NWC) [announced] on Dec. 15 in a press release that they decided to “resume conference competition and championships after January 1, 2021 when federal, state, local and NCAA health directives permit.” This means that some sports will be able to compete during spring semester if both Oregon and Willamette allow certain forms of athletic competition. Willamette has yet to make an announcement regarding plans for sports other than football and basketball.
Marion County has over [460 cases per 100,000 people over the past fourteen days], putting the county in the [“Extreme Risk” category] at least through the end of the year. OHA places restrictions on extreme-risk counties, such as prohibiting indoor recreation and limiting outdoor recreation to fifty people.