Western Carolina University Athletics is trying hard to have the busy spring season happen in a safe way keeping its athletes, coaches and staff healthy.
This task increases in difficulty when, this semester, there are 11 sport seasons. Western has cancelled meets and games due to COVID-19 infections, forcing the entire teams to go in quarantine. Western Carolina has to follow many protocols by the NCAA, the Southern Conference and developed their own. Every aspect of athletics had to be changed from traveling for games/meets down to study hall for the student-athletes.
“There is no playbook in taking on an athletic department during a pandemic. Adjusting to everything, depending on your staff and doing a lot of reading has been really important,” says athletic director, Alex Gary, who took over the position in the spring of 2020. “I had to do a lot of learning and with the pandemic, it isn’t just an athletics issue its a university wide issue, its a region issue. Trying to understand the rules in the other states we compete in, we have to adopt as well” he added.
The new normal with these protocols looks like this: student-athletes have to get their temperatures taken at the beginning of the day before walking into any athletic building, as well as get COVID-19 testing done every week before a sporting event. While at practice or weight-lifting, unless the athletes are actively working out, mask must be worn.
In the athletic training room, many regulations and rules have been placed. For almost a year, ice baths were not allowed. This rule is only now loosening up by NCAA but only under certain conditions and again regulations. Athletes need to have an appointment to get treatment on injuries or anything hurting. And their performance is not seen by audience or very little audience, which overall can impact their performance.
For many WCU athletes seniors like Donnavan Spencer, COVID-19 ruined the whole senior year. He had to decide whether he was staying extra semester after his December 2020 graduation or leave without finishing his senior season.
“I decided to come back because I wanted to finish the whole season with my brothers on the field and I also wanted to leave my mark on the field one last time since we had no home games in the fall,” says Spencer. In the fall, WCU had 3 off-season games that were away.
The pandemic not only affected the sports seasons but also the tradition and the culture of WCU game-days. No homecoming, no tailgating, no in-person attendance and also no student section at any sporting event. Now that things are starting to open up more, in-person attendance is still very-limited, some events are still with no spectators at all.
“COVID-19 has definitely had a major impact on culture because you can’t celebrate with your teammates as much as before and also we can’t show the love to other players after the game with COVID rules. Most of all, we can’t be apart if tailgates because of large crowds and I feel that’s what makes the games more exciting for fans,” said Spencer.
Athletic treatment, sporting events weren’t the only thing that has been affected by the pandemic. The extra learning and studying that is offered to student-athletes was affected also.
“We’ve had to transition into having virtual study hall sessions because of having to cut back on how many people we let in the building at a time for face-to-face sessions, because of that we can’t as many students fully as we want too,” said Sametria Matthews, associate director of academic support. Any time after an in-person session, everything has to be sanitized. Desks and computers are now spread to follow the social distancing guidelines and mask are mandatory.
“Overall, I hope everything goes back to normal soon. Not just because it’ll help academics for student-athletes go back to normal and they can actually learn again but also because you all deserve to get the experience. So many of our athletes have missed out on senior seasons and that’s the best part of a college experience for an athlete,” said Matthews.
Next semester the school plans on going back to full operations which will lighten things up for athletics and hopefully bring a sense of normalcy. To see the rest of the sporting events scheduled for the spring, visit the WCU athletics page.
