The usual excitement I feel about the start of the school year has been amplified by the amount of time spent away from the team. I miss being around the athletes and can’t wait to get back to training.
While I have had plenty of time to prepare for the upcoming season, school administrators have been working their tails off in seemingly nonstop meetings anticipating the school year. Saint John’s has taken the necessary precautions and has a thoughtful plan in place to welcome students back.
This fall, St. John’s moved entirely to a block class schedule. Students will only take one class at a time. The new schedule limits the amount of interactions faculty and students need to have on a daily basis, decreases reliance on the inter-campus bus, and there will be less movement around campus throughout the day. Plans for testing, quarantining, and cleaning have been created. As for athletics, some fall sports are delayed to the spring, including cross country. We have been instructed that the spring cross country season will be sandwiched between indoor and outdoor track seasons.
Our coaching staff continually revises plans based on the available information. So as we’ve gotten guidance from the conference and the NCAA, we quickly set about making a plan to capitalize on our circumstances. There are two big changes that impact track practice, but we’re seeing a lot of ways it can benefit our athletes. First, there is an expectation of initially implementing smaller practice groups. While that might be an inconvenience for some sports, we already have practices broken up by event. Further dividing event groups into smaller training pods allows us to pay more attention to everyone. The small groups will also impact use of the weight room, as the number of athletes allowed in the space at any time will be limited. The second change relates to how the NCAA calculates our season. The NCAA has added flexibility to how we use our practice time and season. Traditionally the season is counted in consecutive weeks, but now we are allowed to count by days spread throughout the year. Beginning in September, we will start formal practice two days each week.
While we don’t have much on the schedule for a while, we have rescheduled the Go Johnnies Challenge from last spring. The online fundraising event is Thursday, September 3rd. Mark it on your calendar and I will provide more details in next week’s blog.