wait, I’m not following what you are saying... because they are students on scholarship, they should suck it up and play a sport and potentially get sick (with unknown long term implications)...
no one signed up for a global pandemic when there were signing that scholarship letter...
Yes, this is what he is saying. They have a choice to play or not to play. That is the choice they have.
If it was a safety issue that could be narrowed down to the field or practice I would 100% back any student-athlete if the conditions they were training under were unsafe. That said, nobody knows if the conditions associated with "training and playing" are any different or riskier than your activity outside of "training and playing".
What's the difference between playing a sport, going to class, going to Publix/WalMart/Target/etc.., a Restaurant, going to a school cafeteria to get their food (or eating there), a bar or hanging out with some friends in their dorm or at their apartment? If they are not going to play, are they going to do any of these?
Which one of these provides the best or worst chance for catching COVID-19? Answer = Nobody knows because you interact with people for each of those options.
Now, if you cut them all out and isolate yourself from society that should give you a much better chance of not getting it....for now, but the chance is still not zero....especially if they live in a building that uses circulated air, common spaces/surfaces, etc... This would also mean the student-athlete is not working out, eating properly, etc...
Of course, this would also mean that you are just paying to have your goods, food, etc... delivered, which means you are just putting that risk on other people. There are actually people out there who had to pull the raw materials out of the ground of from a manufacturing facility (which has to be staffed to do so), put them together, or move them from the machinery that put them together to a loading area, then people had to put the product on a truck, then the truck had to go from point A to point B, then the product has to be moved from point B probably onto another truck to be moved to a store or delivered to your address. Oh yeah, there are other people who are managers that have to oversee all of this. So, each time you do something like buy a piece of gum from Instacart or Amazon you are putting dozens of lives at risk so you can chew that stick of gum.