ANTHONY GETTINO
Assistant Sports Editor
Almost every day since the coronavirus has pushed classes to online learning and shut down all sports, I’ve woken up and asked myself, “What now?”
I’m sure that I’m not the only one that’s asked this question at least once. So I thought, who better to ask this to than the student-athletes who have been affected the most seniors who are graduating this spring.
Aidan Pollard and Kyle Egan are seniors on Fredonia State’s cross country and track and field teams. Egan is a history and adolescent education major and Pollard is a journalism major.
You just have to wonder how seniors feel about losing their last season of college athletics, as well as their last semester in college as a whole.
Pollard’s answer was pretty short and sweet: “Bad. But there’s nothing I can do about it except take a fifth year so there isn’t much worth in dwelling on it.”
Egan had a different thought on the matter.
“I feel unsatisfied, I was in great shape and ready to give the SUNYACs my all. I had sat down and spoken with [Coach Tom Wilson about] setting up my season plan to qualify for SUNYACs and was confident in a great last season. For the foreseeable future, I will always wonder what could have been,” he said.
He also said he understands that every senior in the entire SUNYAC for all spring sports has to be feeling similar, and he feels for them; this is a truly unfortunate situation that has affected and devastated us all.
Seniors have also been thrust into the real world months earlier than they expected to be. Pollard is planning on using this time to find a job and train to run marathons, so he doesn’t waste the conditioning he did for outdoor track.
Egan is going to try to run at least one marathon in under three hours. He understands that it could be a long time until any sporting events take place, especially a marathon, so he has put running on pause. He is also going to apply to teaching jobs in the area around his hometown.
As a parting gift from Fredonia, I asked these two what they took away from their time as a Blue Devil. Egan says to “just live in the moment and work toward what you want now as you can’t count on that next season to happen to accomplish your goals.”
Pollard also gave some great advice to current and future Blue Devils by encouraging them to “run every race like it’s your last, because apparently it might be.”