Quarantine brings new challenges to athletics community

When the NBA announced the indefinite suspension of its season in response to the coronavirus pandemic on the evening of March 12, the world of sports was sent into a frenzy.

Within just 24 hours, professional leagues both domestic and abroad announced similar cancellations with no immediate plans for return. 

On the collegiate level, athletes and staff at USC were forced to press pause with seasons in full swing.

Preparations and travel plans for postseason play were well underway for winter sports, and spring sports had just kicked off. Those involved with USC’s men’s basketball team were either on their way to or already in Las Vegas for the Pac-12 Tournament.

Various USC beat reporters were hustling to keep up at a time when winter and spring sports were in action, spring football had just begun and the annual recruiting cycle was in full swing. 

With the NBA taking such a definitive stance, there was a growing belief within the college sports community that the clock was ticking. 

“Right as spring practice ended, that’s when the NBA [postponed] their season,” USCFootball.com producer Keely Eure said. “I think that, seeing the sports world, a professional sport, suspend their season … it just felt like if professionals are not playing, how are you going to make students play? And so that for me was when it became really serious.”

Eure’s hunch was quickly proven to be accurate, as the NCAA announced subsequent suspensions of competition shortly thereafter.

As for USC’s chief marketing officer, Craig Kelley, things could not have happened at a more chaotic time. Kelley and members of the athletic department staff were in Las Vegas for a busy week of meetings with the Pac-12 Conference and business partners. Kelley said that after initial conversations with athletic director Mike Bohn and others, he quickly became aware that the week’s festivities would not continue as planned. 

From a student-athlete’s perspective, junior men’s volleyball player Cole Paxson said he and his teammates became aware of the severity of the situation following a Wednesday-night matchup with Concordia in Irvine. By the end of the evening, word had spread and players were aware of the NBA’s decision to suspend its season and the potential ramifications the decision would have on their own. 

“I was like, ‘Well, this could have been our last game of the season. That kind of sucks for the seniors if this is it,’” Paxson said. “And then we woke up the next morning, and our coach calls and was telling us that the season was over.”

Paxson said the emotions following the call were primarily those of disappointment and disbelief.

“It kind of hit us pretty hard,” Paxson said. “The next morning, just everything was done like we put in work for the entire year, and then everything’s just gone.”

For Eure, things haven’t been too out of the ordinary from the reporting side of things. She said she has to make slight adjustments to make her technology work seamlessly but that the real difficulty lies in finding stories. 

“There’s nothing we can actually cover, like there’s nothing actively happening,” Eure said. “So I think that’s the biggest challenge: kind of rehashing old storylines or looking into the history of things.”

Kelley’s marketing team has been tasked with trying to find new ways to keep fans engaged in the absence of live sports. While the shift to working from home has been relatively successful, sustaining interest and engagement has been an ongoing battle. 

“The technology side wasn’t that difficult,” Kelley said. “I think the hardest part for us was the removal of the athletic events. It obviously changes the scope of our work.”

For Kelley, although his staff is remote, the priorities are staying consistent. 

“For us, it’s focusing on the 2020 season — getting prepared for that,” Kelley said. “And that’s all sports included.”

Paxson said his teammates have been advised by USC sports psychologists to maintain the routines they had been practicing on campus. Part of that routine is meeting regularly with coaches and teammates, Paxson added, which now happens over Zoom.

“I try to wake up around the same time … and make a good meal and then just try to continue out my day like it’s normal,” Paxson said.

Finding ways to get their fix of sports content has been a challenge for athletes and employees alike with the widespread absence of live sports.  

Eure’s life at home during the pandemic has given her a greater appreciation for the role sports play in her life.

“I think this made me realize sometimes as a sports reporter, you can get overloaded with sports, and you’re like, ‘I just don’t want to see another highlight,’” Eure said. “Now I’m like, ‘Give me any highlights’ … I think my roommate was watching some random Rams game from, like, two seasons ago or something, but I heard the whistles from upstairs and there was something about whistles happening — it was so exciting.”

For Kelley, the most challenging part of quarantine has been helping his two young daughters with their math homework. 

“My kids definitely keep me busy,” Kelley said. “It’s been far more challenging than I anticipated because of the schoolwork side of it, more so than my own job.”

As a sports fan, Paxson has tried to find entertainment by consistently checking in on ESPN programming, but the lack of live sports has made it challenging to find content worth watching.

Paxson, Eure and Kelley all touched on not taking things for granted after seeing how quickly sports can be taken from those involved in them.

Eure stressed the importance of understanding priorities at a time like this. 

“Really valuing your job for what it is, and also just how much your relationships with friends and family are so important,” Eure said. “When you’re going through something like this, everyone really leans on each other.”