Even after eight football players from the University of Nebraska filed a lawsuit on Aug. 27 against the Big Ten Conference for canceling their season, some San Jose State student-athletes still said they support the decision to cancel their seasons.
“It hurts my heart that some athletes are so strongly dependent on their sports for their identity,” said Karlee Pottorff, a senior and an SJSU women’s soccer defender, in a text message referring to the lawsuit.
Identities aside, the SJSU women’s soccer team embraced and pushed for postponement in the Mountain West Conference.
“After a lot of conversation, we came to terms that it was the best decision to be OK with the postponement because it’s what is being called for in this time,” Pottorff said.
When the season was still uncertain in early August, Pottorff organized a Zoom conference on Aug. 8 with the help of three of her teammates to bring together 10 out of the 12 university soccer teams in the conference to discuss the possibility of postponing their season.
“As a senior class, the four of us took matters into our own hands and got into contact with all the other Mountain West women’s soccer players,” Pottorff said. “Mainly seniors and captains, we wanted to see how everyone else felt about a postponed season. After the conversation, we all understood where each other was coming from, and we were all on the same page that we wanted to honor not only the sport itself but also consider the current state of the world we are living in.”
When it came to the decision, the meeting helped the teams attended realize the importance of a season delay because of the many risk factors of playing during a pandemic.
“I really enjoyed the meeting with the other girls and honestly learned a lot from them,” SJSU senior defender Lauola Amanoni said. “Living and playing in different states, there were so many factors that we didn’t even consider that those other states were going through.”
Women’s soccer decided to commit to a postponement because so much was still unknown about how the season would go and what risks would become apparent because of other teams being out of state.
“It seemed like there was a plan to start practicing, but no plans to play games, travel, etc.,” senior forward Bella Bowers said. “It just didn’t seem safe to commit to having a season when we had no answers about how we would play games, especially against teams who were out of state.”
The team also discussed the actions it would take if the Mountain West Conference didn’t postpone its season.
“If Mountain West didn’t postpone the season, us as a team, were going to all redshirt or opt-out of the season,” Pottorff said. “It would be disappointing to see the rest of the conference go on, but we know that our hearts are for the greater good.”
Unlike Nebraska’s team, the SJSU women’s soccer team said they put their health before anything when it came down to the dangers of playing during a pandemic.
“As athletes, we can be pretty blinded by what’s in front of us, and in this case these football players just see their season is being taken away. I think it’s so much bigger than that though,” Bowers said. “The effects of COVID-19 are still unknown and we are seeing that people are being physically affected by this virus. I think Big Ten has the student-athlete best interest in mind. It’s not an easy decision to make as a conference and I believe that we would all have a season if it was safe enough.”
