Spring sport athletes at Williams College and the rest of the schools in the New England Small College Athletic Conference see a glass as half-full this weekend.
That’s because the NESCAC presidents announced earlier in the week that a spring conference season could still happen. A statement from the conference office in Hadley read that while COVID-19 cases are starting to decline, both nationally and in the NESCAC footprint, those numbers remain higher than they were at the start of the fall semester, when NESCAC canceled all fall and then winter sports.
The statement reads that conditions will need to improve in order to have a spring season.
“We recognize how important athletic competition is to many of our students and to our communities, and we understand the dismay many will feel at the possibility that spring conference competition might be canceled two years in a row,” a statement from the conference read. “The Presidents will take this into consideration when making a final decision in late February or early March.”
For Williams athletic director Lisa Melendy, this decision to defer until next month was a better option than the alternative.
“Obviously, that’s frustrating” not to have certainty on spring season sports, she said, “but I was excited about the announcement [Wednesday] because the only other option was ‘no.’ I know we were hoping to get to ‘yes.’ I knew we couldn’t say yes right now, given where things stand and we’re anxious to get students back on campus and make sure that’s going all right before we make a commitment. We could have said yes, but if we said yes, it couldn’t really be a yes.
“I was actually pleased with this decision, because it gives us hope and it gives us an opportunity to continue to evaluate facts on the ground as they continue to unfold, and try to make a plan to get there if we can.”
The Williams spring semester will begin in the middle of February. Students are scheduled to return to campus in Williamstown between Feb. 10-14, with classes starting on Feb. 17. The end of the semester is May 19. The start of the semester is two weeks behind what Williams normally has as an opening date.
Melendy wasn’t speaking for other athletic directors in the conference, but she did concur with the statement from the conference that the schools need to do whatever can be done to give spring sport athletes a season. A year ago, the NESCAC lacrosse teams had just barely gotten started with their seasons, while other spring sports were still in training.
“Certainly. We really feel for those students,” she said. “To lose a second season is just heartbreaking. We’re really hoping we can get there, but of course, we just don’t know right now. We’re excited that the infection rates are down. We have hope that we would be further along with vaccinations than we are right now. We’ll just see where we end up in a few weeks and later into the spring.
“I think our athletes will be happy, at this point, and appreciative of even a very short schedule. Just to have a few games would bring smiles to their faces.”
One thing that is certain, even if there are spring sports, there will not be any spring trips for teams.
“The college has already eliminated spring break, so there’s not even an opportunity” to make a trip, she said. “We wouldn’t have done it, and there’s no room in the calendar to do it.”
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