This spring semester was without a doubt the weirdest semester I think any student has ever had. If you told me on January 1st that within a few months we’d go on spring break forever, all sports would be shut down and we would be confined to our homes for weeks at a time attending classes while lazily lounging around our homes, I would have directed you to the nearest rehab facility. Nobody could’ve seen this coming. We ask ourselves, what now?

For the first time ever, there are no sports for me to talk about. There are no new stats, no standings, and no championships to be excited about. 

It’s a strange feeling, one that’s really hard to wrap my head around. Sports bring people together in more ways than one, creating opportunities for people to bond over one single thing in common. Whether it’s being the fans of the same team, or being teammates on a team, sports create unbreakable bonds between others that can last generations. 

Without that, there’s a little chunk of a lot of people’s lives that’s just left empty. 

One of the hardest things for me to think about is the student-athletes who spent countless hours in the weight room, in the gym running suicides and working on their jump shots, on the fields taking hundreds of ground balls and batting practice, preparing themselves to give their entire best to help their team win a championship, only to have a freak strain of the flu take their entire seasons away. 

I especially feel for the seniors, who’ve worked their entire sports lives to be the leaders of their team, getting ready to lead their team in what would’ve been their last chance at making school history. 

Some of those seniors may get their eligibility back to make up for lost time, but unfortunately these seniors also have lives to live, and careers outside of sports they must focus on. For some of these seniors, this was their last year, no matter what, and now it’s been wasted by something outside of their control. 

For athletes in the junior college system, this was a year for them to gain exposure to four-year schools and try to get offers to continue their athletic careers. The sad reality is that this year may have been someone’s last opportunity to attract attention from bigger schools, and they may not get that opportunity back.  

All I can say right now is to just be patient. I know this isn’t getting any easier with every week we have to stay inside, but if we don’t do something now, we might be in this situation for months.

 Stay home, wash your hands, and enjoy the health you have today. There are lots of people out there who wish they could say the same.

For the student-athletes who were robbed of a season, all I can say is better days are ahead. The future may seem bleak today, but in my experience, everything will find a way to work itself out one way or the other.