Notebook: Barbour Tackles Questions for Penn State, NCAA Pandemic Response

Three weeks ago Thursday, Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour took an early morning flight to Indianapolis to join the men’s basketball team as it prepared for the Big Ten tournament later that evening.

Arriving as the team conducted a shoot-around in the morning, Barbour learned soon after that the conference ultimately wouldn’t play another postseason game. And by the time the team returned to State College, feedback landed that the NCAA tournament had also been canceled as a result of the budding COVID-19 pandemic.

A dramatic and unprecedented turn that would upend every facet of American life in the time since, the pandemic has forced Barbour and the Penn State athletic department to grapple with its ongoing fallout and the potential for even more disruption in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Thursday afternoon, Barbour joined reporters for a Zoom web conference to discuss the ongoing challenges and the next steps as the sporting world, at every level, attempts to plan for the future.

Let’s dive into the biggest news and notes items to emerge from the session in a practical FAQs format:

Will there be a college football season?

From the jump, Barbour laid out the priority element that guided the initial decisions to cancel the winter sports postseason and the entirety of the spring sports season.

It’s about the health, safety, and welfare of all of the participants, student-athletes as well as the entire ecosystem of coaching and administrative personnel.

And that will continue to guide decisions that are made henceforth and into the future.

But when the smoke clears, when the pandemic has passed, when everyone is in complete agreement of health, safety, and welfare, led by experts, college football will ultimately be ready to produce a season in some shape or form.

“I believe it's in everyone's best interest when it's safe and right to do so, that we play a football season,” Barbour said. “We've already talked about kind of the emotional and the morale piece for communities across this country. And then certainly, there's a revenue and a financial piece to it.”

Are the decision-makers willing to make adjustments to the football season?

Yes.

“The work that we're doing will prepare us for whenever that date is, that we then know what kind of ramp-up we need, how we might fit a football season, a volleyball season, whatever season it is, into a timeframe,” she said. “We're looking at, no matter when that is, how we get those seasons in.

“If our return fits into a timeframe that we have to do it in a non-traditional part of the year, I think we'll all look to try to make that happen.”

How much time is needed before football can reasonably take place?

Roughly two months are needed for that lead-in to a football season.

Saying they’ve relied on sports science experts, strength and conditioning coaches, team physicians - Penn State’s “performance team” - Barbour said they’ve narrowed their expectations to a “60-da window.”

Would the NCAA consider having football games without fans in the stadium?

Bottom line, not really, for practical reasons.

Acknowledging that “mechanically” it could be done, Barbour indicated that student-athletes won’t be back on campus until the entirety of the student body is permitted back on campus. And, by extension, the entirety of the student body won’t be permitted back on campus until it’s completely safe to do so, meaning it would also be safe in that environment to have fans in stadiums.

“It's not the ideal. It's not what want to do. But it also just depends on what our choices are. What are the scenarios that we're faced with?” Barbour said. “I'll go back to one of our major principles, and that is, we're not coming back to campus - whether it's students or whether it's student-athletes, they're not coming back to campus until it's safe and unhealthy and prudent to do so - so I'm not sure whether a situation where it's not wise or prudent to have folks in the stands marries up with it's okay to have students back on campus.

“Does it realistically work given the health and safety issues? We're not going to bring students back to campus until it's safe.”

What is the impact of all of this on season ticket sales?

The deadline for retaining season tickets has already passed, Barbour said, and roughly 94 percent of last year’s season ticket holders have renewed for this upcoming season.

“We're looking at scenarios and then how we might respond to each and every one of those so that when we're ready to go, or we know more, we'll have a way to approach that.”

Will cutting sports be necessary at Penn State?

Presently, no, but Barbour didn’t rule it out entirely.

Describing it as part of Penn State’s “DNA” to have 31 programs and 800-plus student-athletes, she said that some of those student-athletes asked the same question of her on a Zoom web conference Wednesday night. And she answered that she doesn’t know, but it “is certainly not something that we’re looking at right now.”

Still, she did acknowledge that the unknowns of Penn State’s financial situation will play into the ultimate outcomes.

“Those are all things that we're looking at scenario planning and looking at what steps we might need to take,” she said. “But I think that our primary focus is on holding our 31 programs, our 800-plus student-athletes together and finding a way as Penn Staters and as a Penn State community to come through this on the other side.”

Has progress stopped on the ongoing Lasch renovation project for football?

No.

While the university put a moratorium on-campus construction, for the time being, Lasch continues to press ahead in its design phase. “So that work continues, and certainly when we get back on campus, we'll take our direction from university leadership about construction,” Barbour said. “Certainly, we'll need to see where we are from a fundraising standpoint, but obviously, we're committed to that as well as several other projects that were on the runway, getting close to getting going.

“And I do know this, that our alumni and donors and fans have been terrific. Our Nittany Lion Club and our development folks continue to receive gifts and raise money through this very challenging time for everyone. So I'm very confident that although the times may be a little bit more challenging, that when the time is right that we'll have the opportunity to move forward with these things.”

Two weeks ago, men’s basketball coach Patrick Chambers acknowledged his hopes for a contract extension on his remaining two years. Have those conversations been put on hold as a result of this?

Essentially, Barbour indicated that contract extensions and other business of the athletic department outside of the scope of its response to this pandemic can and must continue.

“Pat and his representative, we were in that conversation before this happened. So we've continued that conversation, as well as a number of the other conversations that we were in the middle of,” she said. “Now certainly, some of the institutional-wide positions and... the unknown, do limit us and some of the things we're going to do, but there's business that needs to continue as well.”

How much financial trouble does this put Penn State’s athletic department in?

For the time being, Barbour said, they’re okay.

That can change, and the outcome of football will undoubtedly play a huge role in financial futures, but Barbour indicated that the fiscal year 2020 is, in essence, taken care of.

“We've spent the better part of the last couple of weeks making sure that we fully understood fiscal year '20 and what our shortfalls might be from a revenue standpoint. Some of those have been well-documented from a conference level. And then also looking at our own, closer to home, both expense and revenue. So we feel like we've got a good handle on that,” she said. “And thanks to some expense savings that we obviously will have from not recruiting, from not having events here in the spring, and the fact that we have over the course of the last five years built up our reserves so that we do have - I wouldn't call it robust, but it's certainly an adequate reserve - we're going to be in good shape for fiscal year '20.

“So then you move into the unknown as it relates to 2021. And certainly, we're doing all the analysis so that we're prepared. We're doing some scenario planning so that we're prepared. But at this point, we're in decent shape coming out of '20.”

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