Emily Molins was well on her way to competing in the Olympics. Molins, 20, a lightweight rower, joined the under-23 U.S. national team last year, and she competed for Stanford University’s national championship team.
Then in early July, Molins was invited to join a brief Zoom video call. Stanford’s athletic director informed her and her teammates that their program would be eliminated because of a history of cost overruns in the sports department that Covid-19 had made even worse.
The news devastated Molins. Her Olympic aspirations had been thrown into uncertainty.
“This decision makes it much, much harder, especially as a college athlete, to have the resources to pursue elite athletics,” said Molins, who has since decided to take a gap year.
Stanford isn’t the only college making adjustments to its sports programs. Numerous college sports conferences and universities have postponed fall sports for reasons centering on safety concerns for student athletes around Covid-19 — and now…
