“The Coronavirus pandemic has affected our team by bringing an end to our season, which is disappointing as they’ve worked so hard to continue their successful season,” said Broward College’s women’s tennis head coach Marlena Hall.
The world as we know it is continuing to change as news and updates circulating of the fearsome Coronavirus flow through media platforms, several schools have shut down all contact with others to prevent the spread of this potentially deadly disease.
Broward College, just like other institutions, has taken the necessary procedures to ensure their students’ safety moving towards a remote learning system.
As other states like New York and California are placing restrictions limiting the number of citizens in a public gathering to a minimum causing upcoming conferences and concerts to either postpone or terminated their events, what does that mean for Broward College spring sports that were into planned before this whole pandemic took place?
As social distancing has become more of the norm today currently, as it stands Broward College and the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) has suspended all athletic competitions for the remainder of the season.
These sports consist of women’s tennis and softball, and finally men’s baseball.
“It is heartbreaking for our kids who worked so hard for 8 months to put themselves in a position to accomplish their goal as a team,” said first-year head baseball coach Gregg Bennis, who was looking to potentially make a strong push in competing and winning the conference with him at the helm.
Disappointing reactions to this news were expected from coaches and sophomore athletes having their final season cut short before they move on towards their next journey in life.
“I am far more disappointed for our sophomores who had worked so hard to develop a culture and a team identity,” said Bennis.
When the news of the outbreak of the virus came out it was first mentioned that there may be a possibility that sporting games can still resume play without the attendance of the fans to limit players’ exposure of COVID-19.
Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James who is the conversation in the leagues’ Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award immediately discounted the notion of playing games without the fan’s support towards reporters in a postgame interview after defeating the Milwaukee Bucks.
“That’s who I play for,” James continued. “I play for my teammates. I play for the fans. That’s what it’s all about.”
Sadly, BC’s spring season sports cancellation comes after the National Basketball Association (NBA) immediately postponed their season due to one of their star players Utah Jazz Center Rudy Gobert seemingly tested positive for COVID-19.
Other significant NBA players later announced that they contracted the virus such as Kevin Durant, Marcus Smart, and team mate of Gobert, Donovan Mitchell.
“I think that’s the scariest part about this virus is that you may seem fine, be fine, and you may never know who you may be talking to and who they’re going home to,” said Mitchell in an interview on Good Morning America with Robin Roberts.
The postponing of the NBA season established a chain of events in which other major American sporting leagues would later follow such as Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Soccer (MLS).
“It was about time, that was the first thing I thought,” said Coach Bennis. “Part of me thinks that their image played a part in their decision making.”
On a positive note, BC’s online learning system has greatly helped students interact with fellow students and professors as they continue to pursue their degrees without any delays.
“As disappointed as I am to not have worked with the team to reach their national tournaments journey, I’m relieved to have a team of healthy girls who can focus on finishing their classes online remotely,” said Hall.
With BC’s large number of international students, professors and coaches are able to maintain communication with not just the locally recruited players but the foreign-born players as they return home.
“We continue to communicate with the team both locally and internationally,” Hall mentioned. “They keep us in frequent talks about their isolated training, health and day-to-day indoor activities.”
michc38@mail.broward.edu
