A JERSEY GUY: COVID-19 Irony: NCAA Needs Return of Athletic Dorms

For decades, the NCAA worked on getting rid of "athletic'' dorms. Now it needs them back.

Of all the strange and often bizarre situations created in college football with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sudden need for athletic isolation may top the list.

If legislation were prepared to re-establish "athletic'' only dorms, the NCAA membership would probably pass it by an overwhelming margin, which would be one of the more ironic moments of the past 50 years in college football history.

Long-time followers of the NCAA can only laugh at the chatter among coaches about how creating a “bubble'' around athletic teams is the best method for protecting their athletes from COVID-19.

Yet for decades, the mantra you heard from college administrators and even some football coaches was that putting players in "athlete'' only dorms was a bad idea and needed to be changed.

Stemming from the 1950's and 60's, when blue chip scholarship athletes were members of but not really part of the student body in many ways, the NCAA dealt with a series of embarrassing social incidents involving athletic dorm life.

They ranged from serious criminal activities, to outlandish parties, as well as a growing sense of isolation from campus life by many athletes themselves.

Sports Illustrated once labeled life in athletic dorms somewhere between Animal House and Animal Farm.

In a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the history of athletic dorms published 25 years ago, one former University of Florida football player offered his description of dorm life in Yon Hall, which was actually part of Florida's Ben Griffin Stadium.

“I could spend a whole day right there, tutoring, eating meals, lifting weights,” said the athlete. “We could relate to each other because we had the same hours, the same problems.”

In today's world of COVID-19 worries, that description sounds like a coach's dream situation for his players, especially if you add taking classes remotely as well.

The debate about special treatment for athletics is not a new concept.

There is a now legendary story from the depression days in the South, when the Governor of Louisiana wanted to build a new football stadium, but was thwarted by lack of funds.

No problem. As part of the blueprints, classrooms were part of the stadium structure, which is now Tiger Stadium.

Over the years, the separation of student life and athletic life became a growing concern.

The NCAA spent decades taking surveys, eventually passing legislation in 1996 prohibiting all athletic dorms.

The concept was that athletes should be "part of'' the student body, not apart from them because of their athletic skills.

Some football coaches opposed that because of the lack of control over their players that it allowed.

I remember having a conversation with former Clemson football coach Danny Ford many years ago.

Ford, like many coaches, was frustrated because the NCAA had abolished athletic dorms and put in limitations on the numbers of hours a week in which the players and coaches could conduct football activities.

"The problem with that,'' Ford told me, "is that the (NCAA have all these rules making you responsible for what your athletes do, but then limit my access to them. If they are with me full-time, I can control somewhat what they do. You can't have it both ways.''

Right now, the world of college football wants it one way. It wants to play a college football season and it wants to keep its athletes and coaches as safe as possible.

An athletic dorm, where the control would be 24-7? 

What a thing.