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The Rice Thresher
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by Chris Larson thresher editorial staff
"No Rice teams will compete this weekend, home or away," athletics director Bobby May said. "The feeling was that it is better to delay these events rather than compete as scheduled, simply because of the timing of these events relative to tragic events that have unfolded the last several days." The decision was made Wednesday afternoon during meetings between May, President Malcolm Gillis and Owl head coaches. Rice's football team was scheduled to face the University of Nebraska in Lincoln Saturday night. Because neither the Owls nor the Cornhuskers have a game scheduled next week, the game has been rescheduled for Thursday at 6:30 p.m. The game is on Thursday instead of Saturday because Rice officials were having difficulty making weekend travel arrangements and due to the fact that the Owls are leaving for Hawaii early the following week. Conference commissioners and head coaches around the nation discussed the weekend's plans in conference calls Wednesday. The majority of Division I-A conferences, including the Southeastern Conference, the Big 12 Conference and the Mountain West Conference, decided to play games as scheduled on Saturday. Nebraska requested to play Saturday, but Rice officials respectfully declined. "Clearly everybody wants to do the right thing," May said. "We felt this was the right thing for Rice, to wait a while before we get back in the swing of things. Other schools are taking another course of action, and we respect those schools as well." Other events impacted by the decision include the Continental Cup men's tennis tournament, which was scheduled for today through Sunday but has been cancelled. Rice officials may try to reschedule tomorrow's Rice Invitational cross country meet, which is also a major high school event and includes the intramural cross country race. The Lady Tiger volleyball tournament, held at Louisiana State University and scheduled for today and tomorrow, has been postponed. Rice head coach Julio Morales said he has been in contact with LSU officials to attempt to find another date and possible replacement teams. The women's tennis team will not attend the Lady Razorback Invitational at the University of Arkansas, which is tentatively scheduled for today through Sunday. Wednesday's women's soccer game against Stephen F. Austin State University was cancelled, and officials are seeking to reschedule Sunday's game at the University of North Texas. Many other Western Athletic Conference events not involving Rice will continue as scheduled. WAC Senior Associate Commissioner Jeff Hurd said that, although it would have been ideal to reach a consensus as a conference, the final decisions ultimately lie in the hands of individual university officials. "We spent most of the day in various conference calls with our schools and other conferences, two of each," he said. "In a perfect world, there would be one solution that would be the same for all the schools. But that's impossible, both within the conference and across the board. "The bottom line is that the ultimate decisions are made by the institutions themselves. There are some other factors, like travel - if they do want to play this weekend, can they even get there? As of right now, we don't even know if airplanes are going to be flying - will it be a normal-type situation? Also, there's institution policy - do they feel it's appropriate to play? You also consider the ramifications to the schedule and whether there are alternate dates. There's also financial implications like television and game receipts, but that's probably the least important." In professional sports, all Major League Baseball games Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled. National Football League officials met yesterday to decide whether this weekend's games will be played, but the decision was unavailable at press time.
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