VOTES

Bowdoin’s athletes turned out to vote on Tuesday, according to the Bowdoin Orient’s Election survey. Of the 328 athletes who responded to the survey, 321 athletes, or 97.9 percent of the total, said they planned to vote. Furthermore, athletes utilized the increased access to mail-in or absentee ballots. Of the total respondents who planned to vote, 220 of them, or 68.5 percent, said they planned to or already have voted by mail. This compares to just 57 athletes voting early in-person (17.8 percent) and 44 athletes voting in-person on November 3 (13.7 percent). Political issues athletes cared about ranged from the government’s coronavirus response (151 athletes) to environmental issues (201 athletes) to racial justice (201 athletes), and the overwhelming majority of athletes, 87.3 percent, planned to or already had voted for Former Vice President Joe Biden.

SHUTTLECOCKS

Intramural badminton begins this week for students on campus. Even with COVID-19 restrictions and complicated schedules, the program remains very popular, with 15 teams registered as of yesterday at noon. Historically a student favorite, intramural badminton was one of the few intramurals from pre-COVID-19 life on campus that could easily be adapted to comply with health and safety restrictions. Students on campus will play a short, five-game season that will end on November 19. Even though the season has started, teams and individuals can still register up until that date.

NCAA UNITY PLEDGE

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) released a unity pledge and logo last Thursday, October 29, as a sign of the Association’s commitment to increasing unity within all member schools and teams. The logo and pledge came as a result of a collaboration between the three divisional Student-Athlete Advisory Committees and the Board of Governors Student-Athlete Engagement Committee. The NCAA’s website states, “The logo includes three different colored hands holding one another’s wrists inside a circle with ‘United As One’ at the bottom. The mark was sent to all NCAA schools in the form of a patch to consider placing on uniforms.” In a podcast dedicated to the release of this pledge and logo, student leaders from across the NCAA expressed hope that many athletes will embrace a message of unity even though the past few months have heightened a general sense of divisiveness and tension throughout America.