2020: A strange season for every sport - al.com

When all the athletes were approved to return to Auburn’s campus after the country started adjust to pandemic life, the equestrian team found its four-legged athletes were just as out of shape as its two-legged athletes, if not more so.

Every year, the college horses have to be worked back into shape at the start of a season, but this year they had a longer break to be lazy, and the acclimation period for the student-athletes slowed their progression even more.

“It was just a slow start getting the horses back going again,” equestrian coach Greg Williams said. “Because we had a much slower return to play for our two-legged athletes, this time.”

Across the country and across every sport, there were certain things every team had to worry about. There was the uncertainty about every game in the season — would it be played? And if it was, would it be the last one played? There was the anxiety around testing and the sacrifices the athletes had to make to be able to compete safely. There was also the differences in the training people did while stuck at home.

While athletes who play soccer could dribble around their backyards, those who played volleyball were stuck unless they had someone who could play with them. Each sport took a hit differently, and some regressed far more during the break than others.

This is a look at the journey different Auburn teams have taken to be able to compete in the midst of a pandemic:

Soccer, the first team back

As coach Karen Hoppa walked onto the field for the first time since the team got sent home in March, she turned to one of her assistants and said “Ok, we’re really doing this, aren’t we?”

“Like there’s a game,” Hoppa said. “There’s an opponent. It was surreal. We’re actually going to play soccer in a pandemic. Ok, let’s go.”

The Auburn soccer team was the first sport to compete on Auburn’s campus since March. Hoppa did not feel ready for that. There were no other sporting events to use as an example or take notes from. Her mind was filled with thoughts about how to do a team meeting if they can’t be in the locker room together and what halftime would look like.

But once the competition started, all the worries fell away, and it was just like every other game.

Soccer is one of the lucky sports where the athletes can work on a lot of the skills alone. All they need is a soccer ball and a space to practice their dribbling. One player, Hailey Whitaker, made her sister, who plays basketball, act as goalie and even bought her goalie gloves so she wouldn’t get hurt. Sydney Richard’s sister is actually a goalie, so she got some practice shooting as well. Others ran through their neighborhoods or went to parks.

“We probably had some people getting kicked out of parks, not realizing they were closed,” Hoppa said with a laugh.

When they returned, they found what had regressed the most was the game time conditioning (they all improved their fitness, but game play is very different) and the game time decision-making. It was also hard because the team had 13 new players on it. But the team was determined, and that got them through the weeks where they weren’t even allowed to kick the ball to each other, despite the fact that kicking doesn’t require skin to ball contact.

“They were like, ‘We’ll do anything. We’ll COVID test every day. We’re quarantine for whatever you need,’” Hoppa said. They just wanted to play.

Their dedication paid off. The team successfully completed the regular season. While they didn’t have the record they wanted, Hoppa sees a bright future ahead.

Equestrian, a $109 billion industry

What a lot of people don’t realize, coach Greg Williams said, is that in the U.S., the horse industry is larger than $100 billion. It’s so big because it’s participant-driven rather than spectator-driven. So when the pandemic hit, a huge industry was at stake. However, it also rebounded quicker.

Equestrian meets don’t need to sell out the stands to make money, so it’s a great sport to bring back in the pandemic. It’s also outdoors, and athletes only really need to get close to their horses.

During the pandemic, that was both a positive and a negative. If the athletes had access to their horses, they could not only ride but also get in extra time since they didn’t have to attend class in a classroom.

“As long as you can ride, you can keep moving forward,” Williams said.

However, if they didn’t have access, there was really nothing they could do but work out. They basically had to wait until they had access to horses again.

“There’s only so much imagery work you can do,” Williams said.

Williams first heard about the pandemic before the Texas A&M meet. He had a feeling the national championship would be in jeopardy, but he didn’t really consider the SEC Championship. He told his team that beating Texas A&M would secure the national championship if they decided to give the title to the team with the best record.

Then they started hearing from horse trainers in Italy. They were telling them that COVID-19 was way worse than Americans knew, especially when it came to access to the barns.

After the Texas A&M meet, everything “unraveled.” The athletes ended up in so many different situations. But the one thing that was the same was that when they came back, they were willing to do whatever it took to compete.

Volleyball, a complete overhaul

Things would have been different if Brent Crouch was in year five with the Auburn volleyball program. But he wasn’t. He was in year one when the pandemic hit.

In some ways, there was an advantage. During the time where they could only communicate by video, the staff taught the athletes how to scout and game plan through film, something that wouldn’t have been useful if Crouch had been there a while and had already taught it to them.

But when the team returned to play, it wasn’t just trying to get back into shape. The players were also trying to learn a whole new system.

“It was a double load,” Crouch said.

It didn’t help that due to return to play rules, they couldn’t actually game scrimmage until days before the season started. Since they had to stay six feet apart, they couldn’t play up at the net, where hitters and blockers go face-to-face.

The team was especially out of shape because volleyball is a sport that can’t be practiced individually. Athletes need someone to serve it to them to practice serve-receive. They need someone to set to them to practice hitting.

“Physically and skill-wise, it was like a massive downward spiral,” Crouch said.

When the first game arrived, anxiety ruled the day. Personally, Crouch wasn’t sure about playing a fall season since so many other conferences pushed to spring. As a team, they were all nervous because they got lucky enough to kick the season off against one of the best teams in the conference. And of course there was the worry about getting infected.

But once they started playing, it was “awesome.” The team started improving so much faster. The players began to see the ways the new system helped them. Although they lost their first six games, they were all against the most competitive teams in the conference.

While the second half of the season, which will be played in the spring, brings its own challenges with academic planning, the team will be much improved.

Swimming and diving, a cold splash

Gary Taylor had heard the “rumblings” about cancellations, but when he gathered his team for practice on March 12, he told them to keep their eyes on the NCAA Championship.

A half hour later, he pulled them out of the water. At that moment, their season ended.

As the athletes exited campus, they spread out all over the country and even the world. Their workout experiences were as diverse as their backgrounds. Those in Georgia got to return to the water pretty quickly. Those in New York and California dealt with stringent lockdowns. One swimmer returned home to India, a global hotspot.

While they tried to stay in shape in other ways, nothing can substitute the experience of actually being in the water.

“As humans, we’re not water-based,” Taylor said. “You’re not born to swim like we do … Over time, your body changes, and you have to re adapt to being back in the water. We saw that a lot.”

They also had to fight through training while out of shape. Swimming and diving are pretty much year-round sports. Since most of the athletes had been training since they were children, they never had the chance to get this out of shape. Learning to push through that has been a challenge.

The competition this year also looks very different. Already, schools have pulled out of meets or the meets have been cancelled completely. While Auburn is looking to replace some of those teams, it’s also hard to have more than two or three teams at a competition because it’s an indoor, confined area.

“I would say our schedule changed pretty dramatically,” Taylor said. “But at the same time, we’re lucky to get a start and have the competitions that we do.”

Softball, a positive out of the trauma

The season had barely started when it ended. It was really hard, really sad and almost traumatic for the players, but coach Mickey Dean was determined to find the positives. After sending the players home and ensuring their well-being, Dean and his staff decided to leave softball behind.

Instead, they focused on team bonding. They held weekly Zoom meetings to allow the incoming class to get to know the team “face-to-face.” They came back with much better chemistry than any other incoming group.

But they didn’t come back in better shape.

The athletes got really creative over the break to try to keep up with their conditioning. Some flipped tires. Others played catch with their parents. Another went to a parking deck and pitched against the wall. Some dads caught for their daughters’ pitching for the first time in years.

“We had some beat up shins,” Dean said with a laugh.

But many didn’t have access to a pitcher or a batting cage to practice their hitting. Or a batter to practice their pitching and fielding.

Like with many other sports, nothing could make up for the real deal. When the team could finally practice together, it spent way more time on game situation drills.

Despite all the setbacks, Dean has tried to keep himself and his team focused on the bright side. They came together through the challenges of 2020, and many of them strengthened their bonds with their families as they headed back out into the yard for a good old-fashioned game of catch.

“Some positive things came out of it, and that’s really what we tried to focus on,” Dean said.

Baseball, a heartbreaking end

When coach Butch Thompson got the team together for a final meeting in 2020, he looked at first baseman Conor Davis and noticed he wouldn’t look back. The senior was clearly having a moment as his Auburn career came to an abrupt end. Thompson decided they wouldn’t do the emotional thing then. They would find another chance to say goodbye.

When the team finally reunited in the fall — minus those seniors and with a new group of freshmen — Thompson couldn’t believe how long it had been since they had all been together.

“That’s pretty incredible to me to go that long as the head coach of a program,” Thompson said. “We’ve been meeting six at a time or eight at a time, so that was kind of a monumental moment to have the entire team together.”

However, players were all over the place when it came to conditioning and skill level. For the most part, players were able to at least go play catch. Some also found places to practice batting or pitching. Pitcher Richard Fitts even built a portable, makeshift pitching mound out of wood.

What the pandemic really impacted was their gamesmanship — the decision making while base running and fielding, the game awareness, the communication on the field.

“I’m talking about those little things because they haven’t simulated games,” Thompson said. “A line drive hit through the infield, and you’re supposed to vault back, you’re supposed to take a step back and make sure that ball clears the infield, and we’re probably taking a step forward.”

While they play fall baseball, the Tigers’ season doesn’t start until spring. Even so, Thompson has a feeling they will need to make the most of every at-bat and every pitch before they’re ready to compete.

Basketball, a slow process

One solitary basketball player stood alone at one basket with one ball and shot. After some time had passed, others were allowed to join, although they each had their own balls. Eventually, they were finally able to share a basketball.

“It was quite a process,” men’s coach Bruce Pearl said.

With the SEC’s return to play rules, it was a long time before teams were allowed to move from conditioning to skill drills, and it was even longer before they could move into game situations.

“I think it’s hard to play basketball without doing five-on-five,” women’s coach Terri Williams-Flournoy said. “To get into the rhythm of what the game actually is, you can simulate it in drills, but until you actually able to go five on five, it becomes very hard.”

Pearl found the conditioning was important. A lot of his players came back bigger — he joked that the coaches being overweight rubbed off. But being away from school kept some of them away from the equipment for working out and the necessary food for good nutrition.

“Some of those guys come back, they’d lost a lot of weight, they’d lost a lot of strength, they’d lost a lot of their skill level,” Pearl said. “And so you could tell the importance of being in school.”

The teams were allowed to start play in November, but they weren’t really able to get around to scrimmaging at practice until October. And if they had any COVID-19 issues, that prevented them from ever having the whole team at once.

Knowing the risks associated with playing in a pandemic, Williams-Flournoy told her team not to focus on who’s starting and who’s not. Any person may have to play at any given point, and they may have to play different positions.

“We might be down to eight players and whatever eight players those are, they have to be ready to play,” Williams-Flournoy said. “They all have to be ready to play.”

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