Bethel Ath­let­ics Con­tin­ues to Nav­i­gate COVID-19

MISHAWAKA--While the Bethel Ath­let­ics De­part­ment re­mains com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing the spread of the COVID-19 virus, a cou­ple teams have al­ready faced mi­nor is­sues. 

As the Bethel Bea­con pre­vi­ously re­ported, three mem­bers of the men’s golf team tested pos­i­tive for the virus in the mid­dle of their sea­son. Per NAIA rules, the team could not prac­tice or com­pete for two weeks while the three ath­letes were quar­an­tined. 

“It re­ally put us be­hind the eight-ball to start the sea­son this fall,” John Fis­cher, Bethel men’s golf coach, said. “But even worse, un­for­tu­nately, was when the COVID-19 [virus] hit in the spring and early sum­mer. I was not able to get, as a new coach, with the team on a reg­u­lar ba­sis to look at their swings, their course man­age­ment, to watch them play only once in the course of the whole sum­mer.” 

In ad­di­tion to the men’s golf team, the men’s cross-coun­try team also faced its own COVID-19 is­sues. Ac­cord­ing to Ryan Som­mers, head coach of the men’s and wom­en’s cross-coun­try teams, only one per­son tested pos­i­tive for the virus, but a cou­ple ad­di­tional men’s cross-coun­try ath­letes had to quar­an­tine due to their ex­po­sure to the team­mate who tested pos­i­tive. As a re­sult, the men’s team could not com­pete for two weeks. 

“They could ac­tu­ally go run,” Som­mers said. “They could go do their work out. They had to do it on their own…on their own time and things like that.” 

The cross-coun­try ath­letes in quar­an­tine could not prac­tice with the team, but they could run out­side and then im­me­di­ately re­turn to quar­an­tine. 

At the same time, the Cross­roads League planned on chang­ing its rules so that quar­an­tined ath­letes with­out the virus could com­pete in races. But the change in rules had not been fi­nal­ized yet, so the Bethel cross-coun­try ath­letes in quar­an­tine could not com­pete. 

When the cross-coun­try ath­letes were cleared to prac­tice with the team, they had ini­tial prob­lems re­gain­ing their strength. Som­mers said while the ath­letes did train on their own, they could not move around as much while they were ac­tu­ally quar­an­tined in their rooms. The ath­letes have since read­justed. 

“Not be­ing able to move around a whole lot ac­tu­ally af­fected them more than any­thing,” Som­mers said. “Be­cause they race, but they were more fa­tigued. It was­n’t the same.”