Colleges, Professional Leagues Cancel Games

The terrorist attacks that rocked New York and Washington on Tuesday also brought the sports world to a near stand-still.

Professional sports leagues canceled or postponed scheduled games, and colleges followed suit.

The Harvard Department of Athletics postponed two soccer games in the last two days and consented to the cancellation of a field hockey game last night. For weekend games, such as the football team’s season opener at Holy Cross on Saturday, the school has adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

“Decisions on team travel, canceling or postponing contests will be made on a day-to-day basis, with the safety of our athletes and concern for the many people affected by these events being our primary guide,” said Harvard Director of Athletics Robert L. Scalise.

While Brown and Yale Universities have cancelled their football season openers—in California and Maryland, respectively—Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth plan to play on Saturday. A final decision will not be reached until early this morning.

“None of these decisions are being made lightly,” said John Veneziano, assistant athletic director for sports media relations. “We’re just trying to carry on.”

The varied reactions in the Ivy League mirror those across the nation as other athletic conferences debated yesterday about the status of weekend football games. The Pacific Athletic Conference (PAC-10), Big East and Atlantic Coast Conference decided yesterday to postpone all league games. The seven other major Division I-A conferences will allow games to go on.

Many officials, including PAC-10 Commissioner Thomas Hansen, raised the specter of the decision to go ahead with NFL football games the weekend after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy ’40 on Nov. 22,1963. While the NFL was roundly criticized for carrying on with its schedule, the NCAA was praised for postponing its games in the aftermath of that national tragedy.

The NFL will decide early this morning whether to proceed with its second week of games, but Major League Baseball has already announced widespread cancellations.

Almost immediately after the World Trade Center towers collapsed, the office of the commissioner announced the cancellation of all of Tuesday’s 15 professional baseball games.

The cancellation of those regular-season games, in addition to the cancellation of yesterday’s and today’s games, marks the first time since the end of World War I that professional baseball had been cancelled for more than two days.

“I believe we are a social institution,” said baseball commissioner Bud Selig. “We have a lot of responsibilities, but above all, we have a responsibility to act in a manner befitting a social institution.”

International sporting events on American soil have also been affected by Tuesday’s tragic turn of events. The U.S. national women’s soccer team Nike Cup match against Japan was cancelled and reportedly will not be rescheduled. In addition, the World Golf Championship tournament, scheduled to begin today in St. Louis, has been cancelled by the Professional Golfer’s Association, marking the first such cancellation in over five years.

At Harvard, the athletic department said they were attempting to pres forward.

“We’re trying to carry on in our normal way as best we can, while understanding how this tragedy has touched and affected the lives of so many in our community,” Scalise said.

—Staff writer Daniel E. Fernandez can be reached at dfernand@fas.harvard.edu.