Bethune-Cookman will not play sports in 2020-21 school year, first Division I college to make announcement

Bethune-Cookman announced they are opting out of sports for the 2020-21 season due to a COVID-19 outbreak that forced the historically black college into lockdown, making it the first Division I school to fully cancel sports for the school year.

"B-CU will forgo all spring athletic competition, including football and men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball and track and field," sDr. E. LaBrent Chrite, the school's president, said in a letter sent out last night. "The recent spike in COVID-19 positivity rates in the state, across Volusia County and on our campus provides clear and unambiguous evidence, in our view, that now is simply not the time to resume athletic competition."

Bethune-Cookman, which is set to move to the Southwestern Athletic Conference next season, is currently on lockdown after more than 15 students tested positive for COVID-19 last week, putting more than 30 students on lockdown. In a video, Chrite acknowledged that Florida has reopened "but that does not give us license to behave as if things are normal."

"[Things] are not [normal], and we will pay a price -- including going back to a fully online learning environment -- if we don't do better," Chrite said. "No one wants that."

The school is not alone in its struggles with COVID-19, as the entire state of Florida has seen its reported cases increase by nearly 40% over the last two weeks. Over the past week, Volusia County has had 544 new cases, which is a rate of 98 positive cases per 100,000.