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Eight players from North Carolina State’s baseball team who tested positive for COVID-19 last week were confirmed to have the highly-contagious Delta variant.
The outbreak with the Wolfpack program forced the NCAA to cancel the school’s remaining games in the College World Series tournament, putting them one game shy of playing for a national championship.
Some say the move by the NCAA has prompted controversy, and a lot of people have weighing-in on whether or not it was fair to send NCSU packing.
According to the protocols established by the NCAA, those players who’re fully vaccinated didn’t have to adhere to regular COVID-19 testing during the tournament. However, those who’re are unvaccinated would still have to be screened, forcing the string of positive tests for NC State.
NCSU Athletic Director Eugene “Boo” Corrigan said he was aware of the NCAA’s standing on vaccinated players, but has asked for more guidance from the governing body.
“We did all we could early and often throughout this entire process, through our training staff, through emails, through people that they know — instead of the idea of bringing in some people that they don’t know — to talk to them,” Corrigan said.
“At the end of the day, it’s a very personal and individual decision on what people do. We are going to do all we can to work, to educate, to answer questions, and to be available but at the end of the day it’s that individual’s choice whether or not to get vaccinated.”
NC State’s last national championship for in any team sport was in 1983, when famed basketball coach Jim Valvano took the 6th-seeded Wolfpack to a historic win over Houston.
As for baseball, this was the program’s third-ever appearance in the CWS dating back to 1968, and was possibly the best opportunity to win their first national championship in school history.
