Seasons’ fate uncertain: What these days are like for Gamecocks volleyball, soccer
Tom Mendoza’s message to his South Carolina volleyball team is about lifting one another up in uncertain times.
Elsewhere on the college’s campus, women’s soccer coach Shelley Smith has felt a rush of pride for the way her players stayed on top of things and kept in shape across a long disruption of being on campus.
And both coaches hope their players can savor this, whether it’s working on a soccer pitch or a volleyball court, just working hard to play the games they love with a high degree of uncertainty about if they’ll be able to play a season in the coming months.
“When you get on the court, that’s a very familiar and comfortable place, you know, for our team and players,” Mendoza said. “So that’s kind of a nice little respite to know all the unknown.”
The coronavirus pandemic has cast a pall on the coming fall sports seasons. While football gets much of the attention and headlines, the Gamecocks’ soccer programs and volleyball team are also in limbo, back on campus but not sure what’s to come.
Team don’t yet have a season schedule. An SEC ban on competition before September has already knocked off the chance for a few early contests. Then Thursday afternoon, the NCAA announced it won’t hold any fall championships — that means any 2020 season can’t advance past a conference tournament.
Both Smith and Mendoza spoke to The State and echoed a similar refrain. Men’s soccer coach Mark Berson referenced the same thing in a video interview with the school’s sports information staff: In this uncertain time, control what you can control. Berson went as far as calling everything else “white noise.”
“We’re there to play and learn and get better,” Smith said. “They may talk on their own, obviously, and read what they can, but they also know that they’re (there) to do a job and they want to play and they’re going to do everything they can.”
The volleyball program is working out six days a week, usually with two sessions a day, neither a full practice, ramping up more slowly because of the longer lead-in to the season. Smith’s squad shares facilities with the men’s soccer team, so they’re splitting days.
“They’re ready to play,” Smith said. “They want to go win an SEC championship. and they’re going to be ready if that is what is allowed.
“If the answers are not given soon, yes I think it’s going to take its toll. But for right now it’s been great attitudes, and just very focused.”
Neither coach said they’ve had any opt-outs with concerns about the virus, but neither knows exactly what the season might look like or what they’re aiming to get out of it.
The standard SEC volleyball season is 18 matches. Soccer only has 10. On the men’s side, the Gamecocks don’t even play in the SEC, but instead Conference USA, which is going forward with sports at this point.
Smith admitted the administrators above her can explain possibilities for the season and what’s being discussed, but in the end, there’s nothing definite. She’s shared some scenarios, talking about going into a season potentially not playing for an NCAA championship. (She spoke to The State before the NCAA’s decision went public.)
That’s to say nothing of the possibility of moving the season and how it affects players.
“It gets a little more difficult when you enter seniors into the mix,” Smith said. “A lot of them graduate in December or had plans to. A lot of them are looking to play in the pros, which the draft would be in the spring, or they might have internships or things lined up. So, it causes a little bit of a question.”
But in the short term, it’s just preparing as if a season will happen.
Mendoza said that still weighs on him, especially when he’s not in the midst of coaching work. Each coach said the players want to play very, very much. There’s still an excitement to get into the nitty gritty of the sport.
But with the payoff in doubt, they can only focus on the immediate.
“I think we’re all trying to lift each other up,” Mendoza said. “There’s probably times where we all just feel it. But it’s like anything else. I think we try to rely on each other. Being a positive influence, maybe someone that comes in, being a little bit down, you’re going to lift them up.”
