Keys to Building Athletic Program Resiliency During a Pandemic

Coming off our school’s only back-to-back volleyball conference championships in 2018 and 2019, we expected to return to the 2020 season ready to defend those titles. Little did we know, the pandemic was going to quickly and easily derail those plans.

COVID-19 was only meant to be a minor inconvenience causing our school district to extend spring break by another week and pause our offseason training. Looking back on that time, it was a welcome break and an opportunity to reflect on the past two seasons to determine how our program was going to fill the roles of nine graduating seniors.

Our remaining five varsity players from a roster of 14 athletes and countless underclassmen would have to work hard in the 2020 spring and summer offseason to make an impact on an increasingly competitive varsity program and competitive league when we returned to play in the fall. As we closed in on the end of the two weeks of our spring break due to the mandatory quarantine, it became clear that our quarantine would extend further into the spring and remote learning would commence.

As our school district determined, along with the rest of the country, to move to remote learning and continue to quarantine, options for in-person coaching were restricted and limited only to remote coaching. Moving to remote coaching for our volleyball program aligned with our athletes’ education being delivered through Zoom meetings and Google Classroom assignments.

The transition should have been seamless, however, athletes’ lack of engagement or lack of attendance in non-mandatory sessions proved to be difficult to overcome. There weren’t any carrots to dangle in front of athletes to motivate them to participate in online discussions, to watch training videos of the previous season’s game film, or to participate in individual training at home with their personal equipment. A team website was quickly built to grab their attention and empower them to increase their individual skills by using online resources to strengthen their weaknesses and heighten their existing abilities.

As the head coach, I was hopeful the remote learning opportunities would offer us time we never seemed to have during our regular season to engage in detailed book studies and discussions, review our offensive and defensive systems on the chalkboard, and build deeper relationships with one another through small group conversations. My faith wavered with each meeting as fewer and fewer athletes attended “training” sessions. The disconnected behavior exhibited by athletes would continue well into our 2020 season, 2021 season and two offseasons.

Logistical and Social-Emotional Issues Hinder Motivation and Halt Momentum
The issues our program encountered early in 2020 were logistical in nature as everyone was navigating the new landscape of athletics to accommodate the ever-changing guidelines and restrictions of COVID-19. Our logistical issues included daily handwashing before and after practice, temperature checks, masking, and a shortened season to be played in the spring.

In Colorado, our high school volleyball season is typically played in the fall and consists of 23 regular-season matches to be completed in 12 weeks with the potential to be extended by two weeks with post-season playoffs. Our shortened season was shifted to the months of March, April and May. In total, our regular season would last eight weeks with the potential of two additional weeks for playoffs – similar to the regular non-COVID schedule. On top of our season being cut short on time, our matches were reduced from 23 to 14 regular-season matches.

Considering the circumstances, the restrictions seemed agreeable and realistic to provide our athletes, coaches and spectators the safest environments possible in which to compete. The restrictions quickly became difficult; however, as our volleyball program had to quarantine for 10 days because half of the players had contracted COVID-19. During this quarantine period, our program canceled six of the 14 matches, drastically reducing our season to eight matches. The additional reduction of matches in our season felt personal and deflating to our seniors, underclassmen, coaches and parents.

As we returned to the regular scheduling of events for the 2021 school year, the expectation was that our season would be “normal” in comparison to our shortened season in the spring of 2021. Nothing could have prepared me or our first-year junior varsity coach for the season that awaited us. The issues we previously experienced shifted away from logistics and moved toward the social- emotional behavior of our athletes.

Each day was a roller-coaster of issues that fell somewhere between inconvenient schedule changes and emotionally draining daily tears from players. Conflicts between players and coaches arose in the early part of the season due to economic staffing shortages and students being threatened by their bosses that they would lose their part-time jobs if they attended practice and games instead of work.

Communication between players and coaches regarding athletes’ personal scheduling conflicts was unclear and unorganized. Reduced face-to-face communication and 6 feet of separation had taken its toll on athletes’ ability to advocate for their needs. Conflicts among players also began to occur as athletes returned to the classroom.

In the first few weeks of school, “mean girl” behavior in the form of gossip, verbal put-downs, backstabbing and physical altercations seemed to take hold of our program and the school. Upon reflecting on the “mean girl” behavior of our freshmen class, we had determined their last “normal” school year of education and activities was in 2018-19. This equated to their sixth-grade year with full in-person learning, practicing, playing and socializing.

The emotional maturity of our athletes had been stunted by mandatory quarantining and remote learning during the pandemic and the remaining years of their middle school experience. Although these issues felt unique to our volleyball program at the time, discussions with head coaches at our high school and our league indicated their experiences were similar to ours and would need to be addressed to allow our program and athletes to grow and improve for upcoming seasons. Our program plans to address these issues by building positive relationships, providing reasons to our athletes in regard to why we engage in specific activities, providing athletes with student agency and offering athletes mental health days.

Build Relationships
Now more than ever it is important that coaches and athletes schedule time in their practice plans each day to build strong relationships in large groups, small groups and one-on-one settings. Regardless of the team-building activities in which coaches choose to engage their athletes, the benefits outweigh the practice time given up. The benefits gained from building strong relationships include increased trust, reduced conflict, encouraged communication and increased collaboration.

Provide Purpose
As athletes took time to reflect on their learning and training during the early days of the pandemic, they determined that everything they are doing must be relevant to their life and have purpose. Take time during practice to explain and discuss the value of building individual skills, working as a team to improve their offensive and defensive systems, team-building, advocating for themselves and their teammates, and the value of athletics in terms of life lessons.

Student Agency
Build student agency by giving athletes an opportunity to engage in the decision-making process regarding your program. Allow athletes a chance to collaborate with your coaching staff when developing practice plans, scheduling new opponents, identifying future camps to attend, etc. Student agency gives students the ability to act and influence the decisions being made that directly impact their lives.

Strategic Mental Health Days
It is clear that our volleyball program’s player contract is lacking opportunities for athletes to take rest days, to take days away from practice to address family issues, or to take days off to address the anxiety and stress of their personal lives. It is unfair to athletes that we are not recognizing when these days are needed and offering them to athletes without penalty. It is recommended that programs include mental health days in their player contracts, as well as building in additional rest days in their schedule during weeks with no or few matches.

As we prepare for the 2022 season, it is our duty to handle the logistical issues with grace and to prioritize the social-emotional well-being of our athletes, coaches and parents.