RPI Cancels Fall Athletics Season

The hopes for a football season for the Hobart College Statesmen suffered a setback as this morning long-time Liberty League rival RPI announced their campus reopening plan would not include fall sports. This effectively drops the Hobart Football season to nine games with the Week 6 game on 10/10/20 in Troy, NY being cancelled.

Turn out the lights on this year's Hobart vs. RPI game 

Whether or not that game gets rescheduled with another opponent really isn't on the table at this point. The fear of negative PR associated with having fall / contact sports is picking up steam and for the first time this year, I am losing confidence that college presidents and ADs will look for solutions (even though I do know for a fact there are schools and programs that are still pushing ahead in other parts of the country) vs. just succumbing to what's mostly a fear-based cycle on this topic.

The obvious next question is whether or not Union College - who the Statesmen are slated to play in Week 5 or 10/3/20 - will follow suit? They are RPI's primary and geographic rival, and given their former ties to the NESCAC - which has already seen Bowdoin and Williams bail on fall sports (although interestingly enough Bates released a statement today that was more open to the possibility of some form of fall season or even a spring one happening) - they could easily be the next LL program to throw in the towel.

As an aside, Union is one of a handful of East Region schools that have not submitted reopening plans for students yet - they have released one to and for the return of their faculty and staff.

Hobart's Week 3 opponent, Rowan University, has announced plans to reopen in the fall also, but with their NJAC rival TCNJ announcing they won't be fielding fall sports, there could be a domino effect in that conference as well.

By comparison, the mostly PA-based MAC is looking for ways to make fall sports a reality vs. just giving up. 

Only time will tell on whether or not a D3FB season for the Statesmen happens or we see the first hiatus from football since the 1943-45 seasons which were cancelled due to World War II.

Hang in there Statesmen and go 'Bart!