BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Today we continue SamfordSports.com's series giving alumni, fans and friends an in-depth video interview focused on the lives of our student-athletes, coaches and staff in the wake of COVID-19. In Tuesday's third episode, Jonathan McAfoos visits with Samford University director of athletics Martin Newton.
 
Newton was hired as Samford's director of athletics in April 2011 and has overseen an unprecedented period of success for the department. Since his hiring, Samford has won 43 Southern Conference regular-season, tournament or divisional championships. Samford's student-athletes have also excelled in the classroom, posting an impressive 97 percent on the latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) Report.
 
Newton is seeing the department through one of the toughest times in recent history with the global pandemic that is COVID-19. Newton said that while this is a tough time, as Christians, we know that God is in charge and He will provide for us during this time.


 
"This is an unbelievable, unprecedented time that we're going through," Newton said. "The beauty of all of this is we know who is in charge and he is going to provide and we just have to stay positive and try to deal with this as best as we can."
 
On March 12, the NCAA announced that the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments would be canceled. Later that day, Newton and the other Southern Conference Athletics Directors held a conference call where they decided to postpone the spring sports, and they later decided to cancel the remainder of the seasons. Newton said it was one of the toughest decisions he has ever been a part of in his career.
 
"I remember watching an NBA game, and when they canceled that Oklahoma City Thunder game, I thought, okay, this is real and this is going to affect not only the NCAA Tournament, but the spring sports as well," Newton said. "Then, the SoCon ADs kind of took the lead from what the NCAA did as it related to canceling spring championships."
 
Newton, who played basketball at Samford in the early 1980s, said he never thought he would see anything like this in his career.
 
"This is something that nobody expects," Newton said. "I never thought in my lifetime or my career I would be talking on a call about canceling sporting events for a virus, but that is what is where we are right now."
 
With the cancelation of both NCAA Basketball Tournaments, the Samford women's basketball team had a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament taken away. Newton said he feels for the players on that team, as well as all of the spring sport student-athletes who will not be able to finish their seasons as well.
 
"The immediate affects are for those student-athletes who aren't going to get to participate," Newton said. "And not just for our spring sport student-athletes, but my heart breaks for our women's basketball team. Those eight seniors and what they were able to accomplish in winning, not only the regular season, but the tournament championship is just remarkable."
 
Newton also talked about the financial affects that sports being shut down will have on athletics departments like Samford.
 
"Financially, it is going to be a big deal," Newton said. "The NCAA came out and announced that the revenue distribution from canceling the Men's Basketball Tournament, they budget about 600 million dollars, was reduced by about 62 and a half percent to 225 million dollars. That means each institution is going to take a significant hit. That's a significant hit to our budget and we're trying to figure out how we're going to replace that revenue that we count on."
 
Newton is also a member of the NCAA Division I Council. Monday evening, the council voted to give institutions the option of giving spring sport student-athletes an extra year of eligibility.
 
"We felt like each individual institution should be able to self-apply a blanket waiver," Newton said. "What we came up with is something that, during these times, with this pandemic, was as fair as we could be. It allows each institution to have flexibility to grant additional eligibility and extended clocks, but it also to make decisions that work for their institution related to additional financial aid."