Everyone knew it was the right thing to do, but the decision to not play college football this weekend was not made until late Thursday, causing more stress after a very emotional week.
The Southern Conference postponed all athletic events through Sunday to show respect for the victims and mourners of the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies.
ETSU head football coach Paul Hamilton did not find out about the decision – although he agreed with it – to postpone the Bucs’ matchup with VMI until 15 minutes before Thursday’s practice ended.
“I wish we made the decision earlier in the week and stood firm by it,” Hamilton said. “I do think it was the right thing to do as far as us not recognizing football games this weekend.”
With the country in such a saddened state, Hamilton believed the best situation would be to postpone the VMI game for later in the season.
“(The best thing to do is) not get emotionally caught up in winning or losing a football game this weekend,” he said. “It would be tough for our squad to get emotional the way we need to because you’re so torn up inside about the victims in this tragedy.”
The situation was made much more difficult for Hamilton and his players as the Southern Conference took so long to come to a decision about the weekend’s athletic events.
“The difficult thing for us is we prepared all the way through yesterday until 5:15 in the afternoon like we were going to play,” Hamilton said. “I found out about 15 minutes before the end of practice.
“It’s kind of like getting ready for a test, you did all the studying and preliminary work and you were ready to see what you could accomplish.”
It was also an extremely tough week for the players as it was difficult for them to bring their usual enthusiasm to the practice field, especially on Tuesday.
“It’s been a very solemn week,” Hamilton said. “On Tuesday no one was in the mood to go to practice including myself, but at the time we thought we were going to play the game so we knew we had to continue to prepare.”
As the rest of the nation had its thoughts on the victims in the horrible tragedy, so did the Buccaneer football team, which began Tuesday’s practice with a prayer and ended it with a moment of silence for the victims.
“It was a real solemn experience,” Hamilton said. “Football is such an emotional game and our emotions are down like the rest of the country.”
As all of college football waited for the NFL’s decision on whether they would play this weekend, the NFL players’ concerns finally made the difference and the NCAA followed suit.
“Once the NFL realized the magnitude of the situation and the concerns expressed by the players, there was no decision,” Hamilton said. “And it was the right thing to do, personally I wish we could have announced immediately we weren’t going to play so we could get in the process of rescheduling the ball games.”
After the NFL made its decision the Division-I football conferences began making its decision in what Hamilton decscribed as a “domino effect.”
For Hamilton there was no question about what the right decision was, but there was a side of him that knew how much effort and preparation the Buccaneers have put into this season.
“There was the competitive nature that makes you want to play after having prepared for nine months out of the year for the 11-game schedule,” Hamilton said.
“But I didn’t feel comfortable inside that the right thing to do was to go play. I have so much compassion inside and emotion still dwelling about what’s happened up there.”
Now the NCAA will have to do the right thing to make sure the games get rescheduled and the season expanded.
“Now its important that we make sure we let the NCAA see that we need to extend the season another week, so this thing is done fairly.”
Division-I college football will play all the way through the first week in December, so Hamilton believes the SoCon should extend its season also.
“We, as a conference, did the right thing this week and now the NCAA has to do the right thing to make sure programs like ours have an equal opportunity to try to be a champion this year,” he said.
When it is time to go back to the business of college football, Hamilton believes his team will be able to return its focus to the game of football.
“There is not question it (team’s focus) will be there,” he said. “Our football team has been very enthused from the beginning of the season trying to be the best it could be this year.
“We have the opportunity to be a good football team.”
Hamilton is also optimistic that the nation will bounce back from this horrific tragedy and become stronger than before.
“One of the strengths of our country has been overcoming adversity, banding together and coming back stronger than ever,” he said.
The Bucs will host Western Carolina on Sept. 22 for their first Southern Conference game.

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