The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted officials at The College of New Jersey to cancel several high-contact varsity sports for the fall semester.

The decision impacts football, field hockey, soccer, wrestling and basketball.

“This decision is not taken lightly. I recognize some student athletes, they’ve already played their last game and that’s incredibly difficult,” says TCNJ vice president of student affairs Sean Stallings.

Stallings says that the college’s mission is to help students safely complete their degrees. He says that the fall semester plan was building around that notion.

“We’ve redesigned what our residence halls are going to be, our dining experience, student activities. Then the athletic department fell within that category when measured against that criteria,” says Stallings.

TCNJ is so far the only school in the New Jersey Athletic Conference to cancel high-contact fall sports. For incoming freshman soccer player Ariana Jones, that decision is heartbreaking.

“With our senior year being canceled at the end, we lost a lot of time with our classmates then, and this is what everybody was looking forward to as like the new start for us,” she says.

Jones started a petition asking the school to reconsider the decision. The petition has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures.

“I said to them, ‘Let’s think of ways we can persuade decisions. Let’s find solutions before we all jump ship to a different school or take a year off,’” says Jones.

While some may suggest that the decision made by TCNJ was premature, Stallings says that the school did not want to take a wait-and-see approach.

“Our decisions are for our entire community, which includes our students for sure, but it also includes our faculty, staff, local community,” he says.

Club sports, intramurals and music and theater clubs have also been canceled for the fall semester.