The MCCAA has always been dedicated to providing a safe, competitive and robust collegiate athletic competition environment for its member institutions and the student-athletes therein. During the coronavirus pandemic, these core values have not changed. The MCCAA understands that the path forward during these tumultuous times is unclear; however, we are dedicated to navigating the uncertainty with the safety of all institutions' student-athletes and staff at the forefront.
With this in mind, the MCCAA has developed a cross functional committee that is evaluating the current best practices regarding mitigating the spread of the coronavirus during the 2020-2021 athletic competition season. This committee is working hand-in-hand with our NJCAA Region XII Safe Reintegration of Athletics Committee to ensure that all member institutions are prepared and implementing all necessary measures to compete safely. The current work product of this committee is the NJCAA Region XII Resumption Plan. This robust document outlines the base recommendations for each member institution, and includes best practices for all student-athletes, game workers, officials, and coaches.
This committee will continue to keep the member institutions appraised of their findings as research and best practices change, as we know they will, and provide this updated information at the monthly MCCAA meetings that our conference is now conducting. Typically, the MCCAA meets three times a year; however, we acknowledge the volatility of the current pandemic environment and have decided to meet monthly until further notice. In addition to these steps, the conference has decided to reduce the number of competitions for member institutions in all sports by ten percent and in some cases, more than ten percent. The conference has also determined whenever deciding a MCCAA championship requires another game, we will be declaring co-champions instead of playing the champion. These are just a few of the changes that have been executed at this point and we predict more to come as the situation evolves.
Providing a safe, competitive and robust collegiate athletic competition environment are the values of the MCCAA. Though the pandemic brings new challenges to executing these, our values have not and will not change. The MCCAA is dedicated to continuing to lead the nation in innovation and create ways to execute these values even during the current pandemic."
