Four Coaches Join Us To Share Their Experiences Of Coaching During The Pandemic — An Unprecedented 16-Week Sprint Filled With Unknowns, Unique Challenges And A Lot Of Joy •
If you watch sports enough, you hear it all the time: The best coaches are the ones who can make adjustments. Being a coach requires constant adaptation. And coaching during the pandemic season that just ended on June 19 demanded a lion’s share of it.
When California’s governor and state health officials finally relaxed guidelines enough for outdoor sports in late February, it triggered a domino effect that eventually led to every high school sport having some sort of abbreviated season squeezed into a 16-week window.
Many coaches who had resigned themselves to losing a whole year, suddenly faced an accelerated timeline. They would face limited practice time, a variety of testing protocols and anxiety, and a long list of other unknowns outside of their control.
The pandemic year’s impact on young athletes has been well documented, but coaches were deeply affected as well.
For this episode, we asked four coaches to share their experiences of being a coach during an unprecedented time, including one that shares a scenario that would’ve been tough to navigate during a normal year.
Join us as we highlight the men and women who willingly jumped in the foxhole to make sure kids could be kids again. These are SportStories about coaching during the pandemic season.
GUESTS:
Tom Costello — Head Boys Basketball Coach, Dublin High
Kevin Macy — Head Football Coach, Campolindo-Moraga
David Perry — Head Football Coach, Bishop O’Dowd-Oakland
Nick Wisely — Head Softball & Golf Coach, Antioch High
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EXTRAS
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS — Our Game Feature From The Campolindo-Acalanes Football Game
SHAPED BY SPORTS — Tom Costello’s Essay On What Inspired His Coaching Philosophy, Written For SportStars’ #NeverStop Project During The Early Months Of The Pandemic
