NC State’s baseball team had a heartbreaking end to its season. It looked like the team was going to give fans another Cinderella story, beating the odds and the best teams in college baseball to go to the College World Series. Instead, the team was eliminated because players tested positive for COVID.
Some angry NC State fans are blaming the NCAA, but the coaches and team knew the rules. The NCAA is clear: “Fully vaccinated student-athletes and other Tier 1 individuals with no COVID-19-like symptoms may be exempt from routine testing. Student-athletes and other Tier 1 participants who are not vaccinated must continue to undergo testing at NCAA championships.” In other words, the rules say that if you are vaccinated you’ll be able to play. If you’re not, you’re gambling with the future of your season. State rolled the dice.
For all of those people who believe in freedom more than vaccines, the NCAA gave athletes and coaches the freedom to choose. But freedom has consequences, or, as a lot people like to say, freedom isn’t free. It cost NC State a shot at national championship. When two State players tested positive, the testing expanded to the whole team and more players were found to have the virus. The NCAA may have been artless in how it handled the announcement, but it followed the rules set for every team.
Coach Eliot Avent apparently didn’t recommend that his players get a vaccine because he didn’t want “to indoctrinate my kids with my values or my opinions.” The effectiveness and safety of the vaccines don’t, or shouldn’t, have anything to do with values or opinions. Still, Avent let a bunch of kids barely out of high school decide the fate of his ball club. That is poor coaching at best and negligence at worst.
Really, though, NC State’s run was doomed by Donald Trump and the Republicans that politicized the pandemic and vaccinations. Donald Trump spent the first six months downplaying the threat of COVID as more than 500,000 people died and then they refused to ever engage in the campaign to get people vaccinated. He and the Republicans who parrot him told their loyal, ignorant followers that the disease was hoax, that it wasn’t that serious, and that vaccination is question of freedom without ever debunking the gibberish flowing from right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Clearly, Coach Avent was influenced by the politicization of the vaccines. He didn’t want to cross Donald Trump and the GOP, so he allowed his team to go unvaccinated. Other teams made different decisions and two of them are still standing in the College World Series.
Right now, we have two Americas—the vaccinated one and the unvaccinated one. In the vaccinated America, Donald Trump is mostly a bad memory and life is getting back to normal. People are going out to eat, enjoying bars, socializing like they did before the pandemic, even if some are still wearing masks.
In the unvaccinated America, Fox News and OAN are still brewing conspiracy theories and casting doubt on the safety of the vaccine. In that world, Donald Trump is still the legitimate president, vaccines are a matter of personal freedom instead of public responsibility, and the pandemic is still taking lives, with new variants causing a surge in cases in some areas. The only people dying from the disease today are the ones who are unvaccinated.
In the world of sports, the teams that are winning are those living in vaccinated America. The unvaccinated teams that are losing can thank Donald Trump and the GOP.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
I am happy you wrote this article. It raises some interesting issues. First, Freedom is not the right to do anything you want without regards for consequences to others. NCAA develops these policies and rules to protect the interests of the players and the integrity of the game. I am guessing, this coach had gone over the rule against the pitcher greasing the ball. But here the coach refusing to inform of the NCAA’s policy regarding vaccinations is clearly not a matter of refusing to impose his personal values on others. It clearly falls below reasonable standards for coaching. I suspect, this coach rolled the dice, an came up short.
Was going to say, “Bravo” for this, but then read the comments and realize it needs a “double bravo.” Stuff happens, folks. The team rolled the dice, and stuff happens. Now, they stay home. Blame who you’d like, but consider what might have happened if the US dealt with the virus a helluva lot better than it did from the start.
Lot’s of snowflakes on these comments. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. The stupid game here was not following the rules. Your choice.
Mr. Mills, I appreciate your writing this piece; you speak the truth. Pay no attention to the negative comments, some of which are absurd and seem to focus on name calling. I’m sad about State missing out, but the story didn’t have to end the way it did. Actions have consequences.
I would be very embarrassed to be associated with a website that would post an article like this. I’m embarrassed for our country that this article exists at all.
This is the dumbest thing I have read. It’s all GOPs fault??? Why didn’t you disclose that 4 of the positive players were freaking vaccinated and 2 were unvaccinated! It’s ridiculous to make rules and policies based around an experiment therapy, the “science” is always changing.
I seriously doubt what you say. The vaccine is safe and effective. The odds of four vaccinated players on this team getting covid are very low. Science is a quest for truth. You might try it sometime.
Bottom line – they are out. They knew the rules -suck it up !!!! all the rest is stupidity.
So let me get this straight, 27 players 13 vaccinated -14 not: 4 of the vaccinated tested positive and 2 of the unvaccinated tested positive. Can someone please tell me why we should get this shot? Seems like the unvaccinated had better results. Also, since the 4 that tested positive all played on Friday, why wasn’t Vanderbilt tested? This opinion piece is yet another attempt to pressure ppl into getting a shot that could possibly kill you. Wake up people, you cannot stop this virus, it has to run its course. You also need to start looking at where it came from and how it came to be. Start with Chapel Hill, they know all about it.
As a NC State fan and moderate Democrat, this has caused me to rethink visiting your page. Coach Advent was vaccinated and some of the players were as well. The coach should not force them to take the shot, its their choice, this are not just 18 years old, they are also 21 and 22. I know for a fact that those who didn’t take the shot did so for one major reason it was the side affects and wanted to wait until the season of baseball was over. We are better than this, this did nothing but stir the pot….
You misspelled “its.” Seriously you need to retreat from civilization and never return – Sir, you could not be a greater embarrassment to yourself or your species
You are what is wrong with this country. You’re an idiot who can’t think for yourself, and you listen to the “experts” who have been proven to be liars. You don’t even know that PCR testing can’t be used to diagnose illness. You don’t even understand that these vaccines are killing young men and others. You think you have some sort of right to be free from communicable illnesses, but you’re wrong there too because nature doesn’t work that way and neither do vaccines. You don’t even understand freedom. People certainly do have the freedom to choose whether or not to get vaccinated. People also have the freedom to lock themselves up in their homes if they’re vulnerable or afraid. No one has any right to discriminate against or penalize those who aren’t actually sick just because they aren’t vaccinated. You effing tool. Please move to China because you don’t belong here.
This is the most absurd piece of shit ever written. What an ignorant spin. Dumbass!
Per the Nuremberg code of ethics every individual must have true informed consent as it pertains to ANY medical experiments.
The PCR test are NOT to be used for identification of any virus, disease or illness. Also at what cycle threshold was the PCR test ran at? Was it above 25 cycles? If so, the PCR test could throw a false positive as it is amplified above the recommended cycle threshold of 25cycles.
Now let’s talk about the “vaccinated”. These individuals have entered into a “human experiment” as these vaccines are experimental and NOT FDA approved and are currently in the last 2-3 years of their safety trials. It is UNSAFE for these individuals to be an elect group to participate in social activities such as baseball.
We do not know what is occurring or what will occur with these “experimental gene therapies”. We do not know the “shedding/transmission” period of these “vaccines”. The “vaccines/genes therapies” do NOT stop infection or transmission of the virus, but once injected they do transmit to others.
Many of the new coronavirus cases have been in the fully vaccinated population. It is unconstitutional to discriminate against anyone who chooses not to join a human experimental trial per their informed consent.
These discriminatory measures go against the Nuremberg code and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Freedom is worth standing up for!
Visit http://www.flemmingmethod.com
Donald Trump is to blame for… checks notes uhmm… the NCAA!
The ultimate unforced error!
What a trash article!! Typical leftist garbage! Must be a tarholes leftist!
It’s funny seeing so many Deplorables sputtering and spitting in search of some angle that would exonerate the team’s irresponsible decisions. Tough shit. The team gambled and lost.
No, it’s irresponsible to push these “vaccines” on the very population who is more likely to die from the vaccine than to be affected at all by the actual illness.
“In the unvaccinated America, Fox News and OAN are still brewing conspiracy theories and casting doubt on the safety of the vaccine. In that world, Donald Trump is still the legitimate president, vaccines are a matter of personal freedom instead of public responsibility, and the pandemic is still taking lives, with new variants causing a surge in cases in some areas. The only people dying from the disease today are the ones who are unvaccinated.”
WRONG! I’m unvaccinated, Voted for Obama, Clinton, Biden. I don’t watch Fox News or OAN. I am beginning to be a part of the crowd that distrusts the media.
Lol, right, and I own coastal property in Arizona. You should know that whenever you give your voting record (supposed of course) that it simply ruins your argument, unless one is a toddler. You are a red cap, undeniably. The testimonial angle has never worked; how the f old are you?
Coastal property in Arizona?
All vaccinated players and staff could play without testing. Once unvaccinated players and staff tested positive even vaccinated players had to be tested. Unvaccinated players and staff rolled the dice, sadly the entire team paid the price.
“According to NCAA protocols, fully vaccinated players were no longer required for routine testing, while unvaccinated Tier 1 individuals required a test every other day while still competing. If there was proof of spread within a team, then vaccinated individuals would be re-tested if deemed necessary.“
The enormous amounts of graphene nanoparticles that are found in the vaccine must have already gotten to the writer’s brain.
If tge team had been from U Mass, a public university, everyone would have been vaccinated. I applaud you for your truth. This wouldn’t have happened if our GOP led university system didn’t refuse to require people to be vaccinated.
NC State IS a public university.
How can you possibly know what other teams did ? Only one college baseball team had every body vaccinated according to one report.
And this line is 100% untrue “ In other words, the rules say that if you are vaccinated you’ll be able to play. ”
Most of the players held out were in fact vaccinated
Maybe apply the team concept. If a player blows it and contracts the virus he blows it for all… one for all, all for one. It’s called Team. So the statement is true as it applies to the team as a whole. Unfortunate for those on the Team that took it for the Team by getting vaccinated. If you think about it, it’s a microcosm of what America is… unable to learn to play together and it will be the undoing of all of us at some point.