(St. Paul, MN) — Competition in college athletics continues to stand still, which has created challenges at all levels. The commissioner of the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (U-MAC) says this is an unprecedented time and all institutions in his conference are working hard to deal with the tough times, especially related to student-athlete mental health. Corey Borchardt says even though competition is shut down, his conference will continue to provide administration, but it has an even bigger goal for the short term to ensure mental health resources are available at all of the league’s institutions. Borchardt says they will also organize on-line help sessions for conference coaches to discuss the challenges and help them deal with the tough situation. Borchardt says in his 12 years of running the conference he’s never experienced anything that has had such a wide-ranging impact across all schools, all programs, and all sports. He says the hope is for everyone to stay safe, but he believes going through this challenge will make the conference and its members and athletes stronger when things get back to normal. The U-MAC is a nine-member conference with seven schools from Minnesota and two from Wisconsin. The Minnesota schools include Bethany Lutheran, Crown, Martin Luther, Minnesota-Morris, North Central, Northwestern, and St. Scholastica. The two from Wisconsin are Northland and UW-Superior. There are other associate members of the conference in football.
U-MAC Commissioner Corey Borchardt chatted with MNN Sports Director Mike Grimm on Sunday night in a wide-ranging interview:
