The coronavirus had started to grip the United States, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s board convened an emergency conference call to consider the fate of the organization’s lifeblood: the annual basketball championships that generate hundreds of millions of dollars of the organization’s revenue.
There was no way to know how many cases were still undetected, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, a former United States surgeon general, told the board minutes into the March 12 call. Murthy, a member of both the board and an N.C.A.A. medical advisory panel, warned that moving ahead with the coast-to-coast competitions could fuel a deadly crisis.