NCAA Survey: 43% of student athletes fear exposure to COVID-19 | Yahoo Sports College Podcast

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss an NCAA survey in which 43% of student athletes said they were afraid of exposure to COVID-19.

Video Transcript

DAN WETZEL: I saw this. And I don't know. I don't think any of us in the media spend a whole lot of time talking about the student athlete, or very little. When we discuss whether we should return to college football or college sports, we talk about money and-- again, America. And our own personal interests-- again, America at its finest. And we don't care about the labor. Once again. Let's do it.

However, the NCAA did a survey of student athletes. And they had I think 37,000 respond. So this is a pretty sizable survey. Some interesting things. They talked about mental health, fear, quote barriers to training. 43% had a fear of exposure to COVID-19. 40% felt a lack of motivation to train. 30% mentioned family, personal responsibilities. 13% is too sad or depressed to train. 43% of college athletes according to this-- and this a 37,000 person survey-- have a fear of exposure to COVID-19.

Obviously we can look and go, you're 18 to 22. You're perfectly healthy. You probably won't die. Easy for me to say. They obviously have this concern. I don't know what that, what it means for a football program. But I don't think it's unlikely that some kids are just going to say, hell no. I don't want to do it. Pat, what do you think?

PAT FORDE: Yeah. I mean, those are very interesting numbers. Really illuminative, I think. And if I'm a college administrator, I'm paying close attention to that. And I'm saying to every coach that I would have check on your players, check on your athletes. A lot of them are. A lot of them have been.

But you know, Zoom calls are one thing. Getting I think on the phone and talking to all of them individually at various points and saying how are you doing I think would go a long way towards at least getting an understanding. Conferences have made it a big initiative. And it's good the NCAA has made it an initiative. It's good. Mental health and being aware of what's going on between the ears for your players emotionally is becoming a bigger priority. And it should be.

And I think this indicates, those numbers indicate that these are scary times for a lot of people. And you know, just because there's video of the Lake of the Ozarks young people mosh pit of revelry out there doesn't mean everybody's thinking that and feeling that.

PETE THAMEL: There was an interesting New York Times article this week which basically said like student athletes don't have a voice in all this, in coming back. And they quoted a tight end from Florida State named Carmen McDonald who's from out west. He's from, I think he went to Long Beach Poly.

And he basically said the pro athletes have a voice. In the NCAA and with other amateurs, players don't have a strong voice and have a union. Their voice is always suppressed. I'm not Joe Burrow. I'm just a tight end at Florida State. And I thought it was a really good point. We have heard the least by far in all this from student athletes.