My favorite day of the year is always the first day of a new fall college season, but it was hard to feel that way in 2020. This year’s first day consisted of a short field session with the five players on our team who are allowed on campus and a one-hour video meeting with the rest of the team, who are all remote for the fall semester. This is not the stuff coaching dreams are made of.
At MIT, a Division III program in Cambridge, Mass., the only students back on campus this fall amid the COVID-19 pandemic are seniors and graduate students. Most of our players that are crucial to the success of the program in the future are attending school remotely and have no access to campus for the foreseeable future. The spring semester is still up in the air – nobody knows which students, if any, will be back on campus then.
During the pandemic, like most in D-III, my team is facing no fall conference championships, no NCAA tournament and a flickering hope for competition in the second semester.