“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” — John Allen Paulos, mathematician

College sports will look vastly different upon their return, that’s a certainty. But to what extent?

Fall sports have been canceled in a majority of Division I FBS conferences. As it relates to lacrosse, the ACC is the only Power 5 conference that will take the field in the fall season. Most notably, the Big Ten and Pac-12 are considering ways to play their fall sports after the calendar flips to 2021.

What does this mean for lacrosse? In keeping with the theme, there’s more uncertainty than there are answers.

“We are working through a lot right now, trying to figure out when and how we are getting our players back to campus safely,” Maryland women’s lacrosse coach Cathy Reese said in a text message on August 12. “We’re looking forward to training in the fall. Other than that, I don’t know anything else at this point.”

Safety is, of course, the first priority for all coaches interviewed for this story. In an ever-changing climate in which new information is published daily, the ability to adapt is paramount. With a traditional fall ball schedule an impossibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent postponement of fall sports almost everywhere, the spring lacrosse season will already be different than years past.

Programs have already shown that the fall will be different, too.

Many students returned to campuses across the nation this past weekend, and this powerful image from the Hofstra men’s lacrosse program set the scene for “the new normal.”

Student-athletes at Colorado are allowed to work in small groups with no contact, Buffaloes women’s lacrosse coach Ann Elliott Whidden said.

“In our situation, we’re fortunate that we have a lot of facilities and not a lot of sports,” she said. “We have a lot of options of where people can be.”

That bodes well for both practice and games if the Pac-12 does find a way to play fall sports after January 1. Some other schools don’t have that same luxury.

In the Big Ten, Maryland men’s lacrosse coach John Tillman thinks schools must be creative in their scheduling.

“It could be a good working relationship [with football],” Tillman said. “Whether it’s they play Saturday and we play on Sunday, or we do doubleheaders, which we have done in the past. I have no doubt that we could make it work. Some people look at it like a bad thing, and I look at it as, ‘What a great opportunity for Maryland fans to drive to College Park and see a high-level Big Ten football game and then see some great lacrosse.’”

Anthony Gilardi, head coach of the Stony Brook men’s lacrosse team, echoed the sentiment of creativity. The America East postponed fall sports in July, and “the conference will develop plans for a competitive structure in the second semester.” Smaller schools that compete in FCS football generally don’t have the luxury of multiple facilities.

“It’s our job as coaches to figure out a way to work together and make it work so we can have a spring season,” Gilardi said. “I think we’re going to get creative. Schedules are going to be very different. We’re going to have to play maybe midweek or at night. But that’s our job. We’re here for the student-athletes.”

Scheduling poses a larger problem, and not just as it pertains to actually playing games. Lacrosse on television is arguably at the highest it’s ever been. Major League Lacrosse’s truncated 2020 season aired on ESPN’s family of networks, and the Premier Lacrosse League Championship Series was broadcast across the NBC family of networks. College lacrosse, too, is seeing a surge in coverage, primarily coming from the ACC Network, Big Ten Network and ESPNU. A spring college football season could dramatically scale back that coverage.

But if football is played in the spring, that will certainly cut into the spotlight.

“It significantly reduces visibility for college lacrosse,” ESPN’s Anish Shroff said. “If you have spring football in any way, shape or form, and you have games I presume on Saturdays, you probably want them in some good viewing windows. What happens to lacrosse? It might be bumped to weekdays, and then you’re competing with basketball and other sports. Visibility becomes a real issue for lacrosse, especially for the peak months of April and May. If you have football on Saturdays, what does that mean for the NCAA and conference championships?”

Shroff acknowledged that programming is up to the networks, and there could be opportunities to piggyback football and lacrosse. That said, networks could also program a full slate of college football, ignoring other spring sports entirely.

“For a sport that in a lot of ways is still fledgling and trying to go mainstream — the PLL gave us a strong foundation this summer — a lot of that momentum could be lost if lacrosse doesn’t have that kind of visibility for the college game, which is the most visible form of the product,” Shroff said.

Even as every team in every sport can relate to the uncertain nature of sports in America during the pandemic, the prevailing narrative is that there’s a sense of comfort that plans are even being discussed.

Whidden said athletes are happy to be back in any capacity. As did Tillman. Gilardi and Duke women’s lacrosse coach Kerstin Kimel might have put it best.

“I think right now if you asked any student-athlete in the country, they’d play anywhere at any time against any team in the country,” Gilardi said.

In an interview with Lax Sports Network, Kimel said the same.

“If on March 12 when our season came to a close, if people had asked us are you willing to do A-to-Z, wear a mask, stay six feet apart, do all of these things in order to play, you would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat,” she told LSN’s Travis Eldridge.

The entire college sports landscape is in a constant state of flux due to COVID-19. There’s no guarantee a spring season could even happen, a possibility acknowledged by more than one coach interviewed by US Lacrosse Magazine.

If the spring season is played and fall sports shift to that season, lacrosse will be affected. That much is certain. For a sport that has been on the rise for years, the decisions made in the next few months could have a lasting impact.

“All hands have to be on deck and decisions have to be made for the best interest of the future of the sport,” Shroff said. “This sport, in a lot of ways, is at a tipping point.”