Monday Musing

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks so I’m feeling guilty. Being the offseason and with the “stay-at-home” orders there really isn’t a lot going on. I am working on a couple of projects but no telling if they will result in anything. I think I’ve mentioned in the past that there are always a number of things I write that never make it to the website. I guess I need a bloopers website but I can’t begin to tell you how boring it would be.

Sign I’m getting old…had someone send me a new recruit to add to the 2020 list last week. Problem was they sent it to me as I was going to bed so I quickly opened it and then closed it. Woke up the next day thinking I had dreamed it. Checked my emails just in case but didn’t see anything unread. Found the email this morning. Kind of happy about it because I really thought the search for new recruits was becoming too much stress for me.

Speaking of recruits, there are a couple of schools that have announced their full class. I try to include the link next to the school name when this is done. Mary Hardin-Baylor is interesting to me because they have 10 coming in next year, which is a big departure from previous years. Heck, previous to this upcoming year, they typically had an entire team closer to 10 than 20 players. Remember that they did get a new coach last year so this will be his first recruiting class at the school.

I’ve currently found at least one recruit for each school with the exceptions being Louisiana College and Caltech. Anyone in the know, feel free to clue me in.

Kind of interesting to see a recruit that at some point was “committed” to a school and then see the same name pop up with another school. Doesn’t happen much, but that is the downside (for the coaching staff) to DIII where the student-athlete really has the freedom to change their minds up until their bill is due.

One article I had thought about writing but didn’t was about this movement to reduce the number of sports. The commissioners from the DI conferences AAC, Mountain West, MAC, Sun Belt and Conference USA wanted a reduction of mandatory school-sponsored sports. This is in large part due to the Covid-19 virus and the really unknown impacts this will cause moving forward. On a somewhat related note, I was also kicking around an article about the closing of colleges in the last few years and how Covid-19 might accelerate this trend. In the end, it was all too depressing so what I do have is probably destined for my future blooper’s website.

In my opinion nothing returns to normal until we get a vaccine and history tells us that may not be possible. Hopefully it is but that means we’re still 12 to 24 months out. Is the new normal going to be “stay-at-home” from October to May while we tentatively stick our noses out in the summer months? I figure the southern hemisphere will clue us in a little more this summer as they are just getting to their fall and winter. I guess to riff a bit more on this with a focus on volleyball and there is no guarantee we get a full season in. I assume the colleges will try to get everyone taking classes on site and hopefully we’ll be better prepared to handle outbreaks, but when it comes to volleyball it’s not a sport that is Covid-19 friendly. We use one or two volleyballs and people sweat on these shared spheres. Ugh. See why I didn’t want to write about this stuff!?! I have not interesting in trying to predict what will happen but I will say that anyone who knows what is going to happen is lying.

You have to feel for the seniors this year whether they play sports or not. Just a waste of a semester and then they get inserted into a world where jobs are scarce. In the case of my son, his entire industry (theatre/entertainment) is gone for now.

Okay enough of that. You see why I haven’t written in the last two weeks!

One NCAA DIII note is that they have reduced eligibility requirements for student-athletes so they can attend school less than full time if they are completing the necessary credits for a minor or undergraduate certificate program during their final season of eligibility. It is good to see the NCAA be so proactive in helping students impacted by the virus this spring.

The only coaching job still open in the West Region is JWU (Denver). This one opened up kind of late when Alicia Roth moved to an assistant coach position at Mercer (DI). She will be an assistant under the coach she played for at Samford University. Whomever fills the JWU position will have a tough task ahead of them as that school completes their move to DIII.

Alright. Stay safe everyone! Keep sending me recruit information. I’m counting on the Caltech players to figure out this Covid-19 vaccine. Don’t let me down.