Basketball. Baseball. Softball. Track and Field. Golf. Tennis. 

All of these sports are canceled for the semester at Marshall University due to concerns over COVID-19, and none of the athletes a part of these sports will have a chance to earn athlete of the week honors through their performances.

Thus, this week’s athlete of the week honor is symbolically awarded to every athlete who competes in a spring sport.

Although the disappointment of not getting to play this season is immeasurable, there is hope for the spring athletes and their eligibility moving forward.

Basketball is technically a winter sport that carries over into the spring, so details on how eligibility for basketball athletes will play out has not been determined by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

But for the actual spring athletes, the NCAA Division I Council Coordination Committee said in a press release via Twitter that, “Eligibility relief is appropriate for all Division I student-athletes who participated in spring sports.”

The details of just how that will work have not been decided, but the important thing is that these athletes will get a chance to save a year of eligibility.

For seniors or graduates whose careers are in post-mortem after the cancelations, it seems they will have the opportunity to gain an extra life next spring.

It is an unprecedented situation for the NCAA and sports in general, but sadly, there was not really a choice when it came to the pandemic of the coronavirus.