Go State

So on Friday I’m going to miss the Memorial Service for my Aunt.

It’s too bad really. I liked her a lot, thought she was cool because she drove a Corvette and wore Designer Ripped Blue Jeans.

She did other things but was a Professor at Michigan State University and many of her friends and family live near enough to Lansing, not us.

It’s easy to ascribe deliberate malice to this decision since it came from the Lannister side of my Clan, but it’s probably mere thoughtless selfishness. It’s not the kind of schedule I or my Right Coast Diaspora could be reasonably expected to meet without Corona, now it’s an invitation to a Leper Colony.

Coronavirus outbreak at Michigan college bar infects at least 85 people
By Robert Gearty, Fox News
6/28/20

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases tied to a popular Michigan college bar has climbed to 85, according to reports.

Local health officials are now advising those who visited Harper’s Restaurant and Brew Pub, near Michigan State University’s campus in Lansing, between June 12 and June 22 to self-quarantine for 14 days and get tested for COVID-19.

“Cases linked to Harper’s are currently at 85 total,” the Ingham County Health Department said on its Facebook page Saturday.

Eighty of the cases involve individuals who visited the bar and then tested positive, WLIX-TV reported. Most of those infected have only shown mild symptoms. At least 10 have been asymptomatic.

College students without masks could be seen in photos on social media crowded together on a line to get into Harper’s after the bar reopened June 12 when Michigan eased coronavirus restrictions that had shuttered bars and restaurants for three months.

The business closed again June 22, shortly after two people tested positive for the coronavirus, the station reported.

The owners of the bar plan to install a new heating and cooling system, and an app to help manage the sidewalk line and control crowds, the station reported.

The Detroit Free Press reported Sunday that 30 new COVID-19 cases 100 miles away in affluent Grosse Pointe have been linked to the Harper’s outbreak.

According to the paper, an individual who went to Harper’s and became infected came in contact with a friend who held a huge house party in Grosse Pointe Woods, where dozens of friends partied without masks and social distancing.

That host was symptomatic during the party and became more ill over the weekend before being tested for COVID-19 on Monday. The next day, he shared that he was positive, according to the paper.

“I’m just so frustrated,” said the mother of a 19-year-old daughter who tested positive after attending a bonfire with friends in Grosse Pointe. Attendees of the bonfire had been exposed to the students who were at Harper’s.

“I’m so sad. We stayed home as ordered and then let our guard down — and now this,” the woman told the paper.

Keep in mind this is the same Crew who saw nothing wrong with drinking Lead straight from the Tap. Accounts for the Brain Damage.

Richard was actually surprised when I told him Lansing was a Corona Hotspot, “They closed the Campus.” he said. Kinda. Sports and associated (Band for 0ne) were running their usual pre-Season and even deserted there are over a Thousand “Essentials” who keep the place from crumbling to dust. Plus the MSU culture plants a lot of MSU students as renters of collective year around off Campus private housing in a slum of “Animal Houses” nearby.

I suspect that is not dissimilar to many Division I Schools.

Until now there has been some question about whether there will be a Fall Division I Season at all. In College Football there are 5 “Power Conferences”, Big Ten, American Athletic Conference (the American or AAC), Conference USA, Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West Conference, and the Sun Belt Conference. They get all the attention because they generate most of the money.

The MAC has already cancelled the Fall Season and now the Big Ten follows suit.

Big Ten becomes first major college football conference to cancel fall season
By Emily Giambalvo, Washington Post
August 11, 2020

The Big Ten Conference has postponed the 2020 football season because of safety concerns stemming from the novel coronavirus pandemic, the league announced Tuesday. The Big Ten is the first of college football’s elite Power Five conferences to decide against playing football this fall.

After sports halted in March, college athletic departments and their conferences have gradually moved toward returning to competition this fall. But the number of coronavirus cases in the United States began rising in June and multiple schools dealt with outbreaks within their football programs even before formal practices had begun.

The Big Ten’s decision to cancel all fall competition also affects all other fall sports — men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, field hockey and women’s volleyball. The conference said it will continue to evaluate options regarding these sports, including the possibility of playing in the spring. The Big Ten has not made a decision regarding winter sports, such as men’s and women’s basketball, which begin their seasons in November.

“The mental and physical health and welfare of our student-athletes has been at the center of every decision we have made regarding the ability to proceed forward,” Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren said
in a statement. “As time progressed and after hours of discussion with our Big Ten Task Force for Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Big Ten Sports Medicine Committee, it became abundantly clear that there was too much uncertainty regarding potential medical risks to allow our student-athletes to compete this fall.”

With the Big Ten’s decision, 41 of the 130 FBS schools have either said they will not play this fall or are in conferences that have made that decision. The Mid-American Conference postponed its football season Saturday, becoming the first league to do so in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the top tier of college football. The Mountain West Conference followed Monday, canceling all fall sports.

In addition, the University of Massachusetts, an FBS independent in football, announced on Tuesday that it was canceling its season. Last week, the University of Connecticut became the first FBS program to shut down its 2020 season, which would have been its first as an independent. Old Dominion, a member of Conference USA in most sports including football, canceled all fall sports Monday.
…
Football players returned to their campuses in June for voluntary workouts held in small groups. Michigan State and Rutgers each had to quarantine their entire team after a spike in cases inside their programs. Big Ten teams resumed practice last week, but the conference announced Saturday morning that until further notice, football players could only practice with helmets and no pads. With four weeks until the start of the season, the conference’s statement said, “We understand there are many questions regarding how this impacts schedules, as well as the feasibility of proceeding forward with the season at all.”

Unlike in professional sports, college football programs cannot keep their players inside an insular environment that limits contact with the public. Instead, these athletes would have, in some cases, attended in-person classes with their peers before congregating with their teammates for meetings and practices.

I imagine the MAC Conference is saying, “What are we? Chopped Liver?”. Well, yeah.

A bunch of other bone heads are saying “I want to play.”