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  2020-08-27

  Playing D1 Athletics during the Covid Pandemic

  I am on the women’s soccer team at Arizona State University, and the world’s way of handling sports during the pandemic was ever changing and interesting to say the least. This photograph depicts me playing soccer outside while fully masked. At the start of the pandemic, all sports were put on a complete hold and all athletes were sent home. The next progression was that we were able to return to campus, however we must practice fully masked and maintain no contact with other athletes. As you can imagine, running sprints in August in Arizona was no easy feat, but nobody complained and everyone was just happy to get back on the field. Within a couple of months, we were able to resume contact, remove masks, and play against other schools as long as weekly testing was enforced. As the year has progressed and vaccinations have become readily available, the restrictions for vaccinated individuals have been almost completely lifted and testing is no longer required. This pandemic has completely changed my outlook on sports and life in general. It is so easy to dread the early morning practices, the hard team workouts or count down the days until your next off day. However, once those things are completely taken away from you, you truly realize how lucky you are to even be on the field in the first place. This pandemic, in all that it has taken from us, has given me a sense of appreciation for all the little things that I used to dread. I find myself being much more optimistic in the hard moments than I was before, and I have been able to be much more grateful for the opportunities that I have been given. I truly do think that this lesson will carry over into my life beyond athletics, and that I will have a different outlook on seemingly dreadful tasks. You never know when a global pandemic could suddenly put your life on hold.
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  2021-03-03

  Tossing for the First Time in a Year

  This photograph was taken on the one-year anniversary since the last Providence College Club Ultimate Frisbee practice. I had sent a message in the team group chat about it being one year since we had been able to practice together. The school had not yet allowed club sports to practice again out of safety concerns. Varsity athletes were still practicing and competing, but club athletes had no indication of when they could gather again. We had already missed our spring 2020 season and our fall 2020 season, and it seemed like we were going to miss most, if not all, of our spring 2021 season as well. One of my teammates responded to the message with a burst of enthusiasm and rallied some of us to the field. It was an unusually warm day for the beginning of March, and even though there were only six of us who answered the call to toss and we were spread out and masked, something felt normal for the first time in months. We felt the joy of sharing Ultimate with each other and let the world of stress, anxiety, and worry melt away for a few blissful moments.