Humans of St. Norbert:

“The night before we left [for the NCAA 2020 Indoor Track & Field National Championships], LaCrosse had sent out a Facebook message that they weren’t going to allow their team to travel. So our first thought was we need to get on a plane to get out of here as quick as we can. We got down there and didn’t have any issues. And then we went over to the track the day before the meet and it was like every hour something was changing. The first big news was they weren’t going to have the banquet. Not a big deal, we found another place that we were going to have a nice dinner. Then, like an hour later there was an announcement that they weren’t going to allow fans. At that point, all of the athletes were scurrying to their phones and texting family and telling them not to come because they aren’t going to be able to get here. Then we finished premeet, we go back to the hotel and we are starting to hear more and more stuff on the news and I think at four o’clock that afternoon it broke that they were canceling the NCAA basketball tournament and at that point they canceled every other sport effective immediately. So literally we were within 12 or 14 hours of kids competing the next morning. Obviously, it was shocking to everyone. The two things that stood out to me ... one, it was terrible for Maddie LeBrun, as a senior, to have it pulled away from her at that moment. Everyone else on that trip was an underclassman so you’re hopeful that they will get a chance to go back. The other thing though that was hard was that we knew that everybody was getting sent home. So literally I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the team. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to the senior class. That was really hard for me. Just kind of knowing that they were going to get sent home and maybe not come back the rest of the semester. On top of them missing their season, just from a relationship standpoint and not being able to hug them one more time or say a proper goodbye, that was tough.

“[This next season is] a wait and see kind of thing. In some ways there’s nerves that you may lose some kids, some kids may not be in the same type of shape that they would normally be in when they come back because obviously weight rooms have been closed for so long. So you are talking about three months of lost ability to go and squat or power clean, any of those types of movements. Getting a chance to do different running things they can do, but all the technical events … I’m sure there’s a lot of our throwers that don’t have implements at home, hurdlers that don’t have access to a track, jumpers that don’t have access to a track so in some ways you are looking at the fall and are like “man, we are going to be coming back and starting from scratch in a lot of ways. On the flip side, everybody is in that situation. The message you are trying to get across to your team is can we be better than everyone else in these times. Can we do a little more than the next person is doing and come back with an opportunity to pick up as close to where we left off as possible. That’s the challenge right now.” – Don Augustine, head coach of men’s and women’s cross country and track & field