TROY, N.Y. – Liberty League commissioner Tracy King announced that the league's presidents have agreed on a spectator policy for the remainder of the 2021 spring season. The policy is as follows:
- No outside spectators will be permitted at Liberty League contests. This includes family members and parents of student-athletes for both home and visiting teams. Each campus will determine if its currently enrolled students, faculty and staff may be permitted to attend its home athletic events, subject to local and state guidance and university/college policy with such capacity limited based on facility size.
A note from the commissioner:
Resuming athletics competition after nearly a year with no games on many of our campuses has been a total team effort. Our student-athletes have been extremely responsible and dedicated in following institutional protocols, including regular COVID testing and risk mitigation. They understand that a single positive COVID test can jeopardize a team's season. They know what’s at stake.
The athletics administrative and sports medicine staffs at our institutions have put together extensive plans to give our student-athletes the best chance at being successful. While a majority of our scheduled league contests were played this past weekend, the risks remain.
A number of our institutions have seen recent COVID spikes with contagious new variants posing a significant threat to our campus communities. While our members are quickly able to identify and isolate individuals who test positive through regular campus surveillance testing, contact with and exposure to individuals from outside the campus community only increases the risk. Some institutions have made the difficult decision to either limit or prohibit guests at commencement this spring in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID.
As a parent, I understand the disappointment our parents will feel with this decision. We want to be there to support our sons and daughters and to share in their achievements. We also want to provide them with the best opportunity to be successful, which, in this case, means limiting their potential exposure to COVID. If it means watching games on live stream rather than in person, let’s all do what we can to make this season a success for our student-athletes.