Michigan football parents sound off on Big Ten decision to postpone 2020 season

Multiple parents with varying levels of expertise on the novel coronavirus and myocarditis share why the Big Ten made a huge mistake.

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There are many who say that University of Michigan president Dr. Mark Schlissel — who’s an immunologist by trade — is more than aptly qualified to make a decision on behalf of the athletic department to postpone or cancel sports in Fall 2020. After all, beyond overseeing the breadth of the university, that is his forte.

However, there are others who are also uniquely qualified with ties to the football program who vehemently disagree.

Take former Michigan All-American defensive end Chris Hutchinson. The father of current star DE Aidan Hutchinson, he’s an ER doctor at Beaumont Royal Oak, and has dealt with the COVID-19 crisis on the frontlines at one of the hardest hit hospitals in one of the hardest hit regions in the country. Beyond the novel coronavirus, Hutchinson knows the dangers of myocarditis — the heart condition that 10 Big Ten student-athletes have been diagnosed with upon recovering from COVID-19.

It’s a condition to be taken seriously, certainly, given the untimely death of Florida State basketball player Michael Ojo, who passed away from those very circumstances. But, as Hutchinson noted to Jon Jansen on 97.1 The Ticket on Thursday morning, the risk is low, not exclusive to COVID-19, and can be managed if health officials are closely monitoring the situation.

In his opinion, taking away fall sports under that pretense is myopic.

“Is it a risk? Absolutely,” Hutchinson said. “But it is a rare complication. We don’t even know how often it happens. I have seen over 1,000 COVID patients. I have seen one pediatric patient – a 6 or a 9-year old – who had this multi-system inflammatory condition that had myocarditis. Does it happen? Yes. Is it rare? Absolutely. Is getting really sick possible? Yes, but it’s even more rare. A rare disease and a rare spectrum of being very severe being possible is very rare.

“I know I heard at the Pac-12 talked about it, but if that was really what was really what went into your thinking, that was window dressing because they didn’t want to get sued. There’s no reason – you can get it from the flu, you can get it from a ton of other G.I. (gastrointestinal) viruses. There’s a ton of viral myocarditis. The vast majority of them, especially in young, healthy people, are minor events. Worst (case scenario) is ‘maybe you have to sit out because your echo or your EKG or something changed. It would be extremely, extremely rare for a kid to get sick and have those extreme complications that we talked about. Not impossible, but in my opinion, not enough to completely trash the fall football season and jeopardize all the other sports for that matter that depend on this revenue.

“Is it safe enough in my opinion and the kids recognize there’s a risk even without signing a release, a waiver. I was there listening to the University of Michigan talk to Aidan and explaining the risks to him and I was totally comfortable with that. Again, it’s not zero – the risk is not zero. But the risk in not gonna be zero in the dorm room either. And again, it’s a lot safer in a controlled environment where kids are motivated to play football. I just think it was a bad decision and certainly too early of a decision.”

While Hutchinson has the most expertise to speak on such a matter, other football parents have shared their frustration at the Big Ten’s decision as well — especially with the Big 12, ACC and SEC announcing their intentions to carry on with a fall season as planned.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect in many of their eyes is that Dr. Schlissel never scoped out how athletics was handling the virus, nor did he have conversations with many who are involved.

Ed McCaffrey (father of Dylan) and Melissa Hutchinsson (Aidan’s mother) shared their thoughts with The Detroit News‘ Angelique Chengelis:

“The fact our staff and coaches bent over backwards to isolate them, they found them that hotel, they had grab-and-go meals, they had the whole thing sanitized, are you kidding me?” McCaffrey said. “The stuff they went through to make it so these kids could, and they knew all along they weren’t going to be playing? What a waste. That is psychological torture.”

The biggest issue for the parents was the lack of communication from the top. Big Ten presidents and chancellors met with Warren to make the final decision, but the parents said they never heard anything from Michigan president Mark Schlissel. One Michigan player, Tyler Cochran, took to Instagram Tuesday night and criticized Schlissel for not once speaking to the team.

Melissa Hutchinson said her biggest issue was “not having answers” and seeing other conferences and teams, like the Southeastern Conference, Big-12 and ACC, still planning to play. The mothers said they would be accepting of the Big Ten’s decision if all the conferences had made the decision together.

“That was the straw that broke the horse’s back,” McCaffrey said. “That’s when I lost it. Just got so upset. Three conferences are playing and we’re not.”

We truly won’t know whether or not this was the right decision or the wrong one until the other conferences carry on as planned, should they be able to, and either go on without a hitch or end up having issues in the long run.

However, what we can say definitively is that the Big Ten made a unilateral decision, which has been deemed as hasty in the books of many involved, with little transparency and questionable timing.