‘Difficult but necessary.’ What’s next for Kentucky State after loss of fall sports to COVID?

Kentucky State University in Frankfort said Friday it will comply with the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s decision Thursday to cancel all fall sports competitions in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

For Kentucky State, that means the loss of football and cross country for the men and volleyball and cross country for the women in 2020. For football, the school recently installed a new playing surface that was to debut this fall.

The SIAC announced athletes would be unable to compete this fall without violating the social distancing guidelines currently maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The league’s decision does not apply to winter and spring athletic seasons, as those decisions will be made later in the year.

Along with Kentucky State, the NCAA Division II-level SIAC includes 10 other schools that play football: Savannah State, Albany State, Fort Valley State, Morehouse, Benedict, Clark Atlanta, Miles, Tuskegee, Lane and Central State. The league also includes non-football-playing schools Paine, Spring Hill and LeMoyne-Owen.

Morehouse, located in Atlanta, portended the SIAC’s decision by canceling all of its fall sports on June 26.

In Friday’s statement, Kentucky State President M. Christopher Brown II called the SIAC’s decision “difficult but necessary.”

He said the school was developing new formats for campus activities surrounding fall sports, including Homecoming and other traditional Thorobreds events.

“It is our intention for Kentucky State University to be a sector leader in developing new models of campus-community engagement during this period of suspended conference competition.”

Brown II said all scholarships extended to current and incoming fall sports athletes would be honored and a process is underway to guarantee no loss of eligibility.

In the meantime, “the campus will seek safe alternatives for our student-athletes to remain competitive and engaged in amateur sportsmanship,” Brown II said.