As I’m sure any college freshman in America could tell you right now, this has been a college indoctrination like no other. A ruined spring of our senior year of high school, due to the coronavirus, we missed sports seasons, proms, and graduations. But even with all the cancellations, everyone’s goal was for things to be “back to normal” come fall. So at the least we could have a great fall semester and beginning of our college experience. Well everything is “back to normal”, but unfortunately it’s the new strange pandemic normal of masks and social distancing.
For every college student there was a lot of uncertainty regarding beginning school in the fall. Kids took gap years, began the semester learning online, and the lucky ones moved into college dorms early and prepared for a college semester like no other. I was lucky Naz has been in person and that everyone has been doing a great job following the social distancing protocols. Unfortunately, I had to worry about whether or not there would be college athletics this year. I am an incoming freshman on the Nazareth Men’s Basketball team and I couldn’t wait to get on campus and begin my career as a golden flyer. But with covid, I wasn’t sure what we would be allowed to do. There was definitely a lot of stress and worry about what would happen with this basketball season.
I’ve now been on campus for the last 5 weeks and I’ve loved every second of it. Even though it’s been a little strange working out outside and getting shots up by myself in the gym, all while wearing a mask of course, I can honestly say it’s been a lot of fun. Instead of playing pickup inside, lifting in the gym and hanging out as a team like we normally would have; we’ve had to get creative in how we spend time together. We’ve started a team fantasy football league, done weekly yoga, had a team golf tournament, and played some good old fashioned upperclassmen vs underclassmen football, (the underclassmen won, obviously.)
Everyone on the team has shown great faith in following the Nazareth social distancing policies that have been put in place for everyone’s safety and I think credit for that has to go to our team leaders and Coach Kevin Broderick. Because they, and every sports team at naz, have done a great job in keeping everyone safe so far. I think that we have set a great example for any school around the country that college sports can happen safely this year.