One of the great challenges the Gamecocks, college players dealt with during layoff
Jay Urich found a passion to put his time toward.
But the South Carolina quarterback admitted: Without something to focus on, there was some risk that came with newfound freedom.
Urich, his fellow Gamecocks and college football players across the country saw their routines dashed and their schedules shaken up. Things are usually mapped out — classes, meetings, weights, extra weights, informal workouts, etc.
But the coronavirus pandemic meant being at home for months, or at least stuck in apartments. Even with players back on campus, they’re being asked to stay home a considerable amount of the time, neither able to congregate at their facility or go out in large social settings.
Urich put his efforts toward starting a non-profit foundation aimed at helping kids. But, he admitted, the months away from sports required a level of time management to balance responsibilities without that structure and avoid some pitfalls.
“Whatever it was, just giving yourself time to rest,” Urich said. “Giving yourself time to focus on your passions. Because if you’re not, it’s really hard. It’s really easy to slip into anxiety and depression. We do football all the time and we do school. We have this rhythm, this schedule. When it gets thrown off, if you don’t have that foundation, you’re not doing things, it’s really easy to do nothing, really slip down and start feeling bad.”
Some players returned home when in-person classes were canceled in March, while others stayed around Columbia. Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp said multiple times he worried about athletes both figuring out how to get in their workouts and being on the ball enough to carry through.
The gap ran from early March until the start of June, when players started coming back on campus, taking COVID-19 tests and returning June 8 to the football operations building in small groups for voluntary workouts. They’d been having some virtual meetings weekly throughout that time, but those meetings and workouts don’t take up all that much time.
So players such as Urich had to find ways to stay on track and manage time.
“I think whenever a curveball is thrown like we have gotten, it’s important to understand that as bad as it is, it’s for a purpose,” Urich said. “Being able to just manage my time, whether it be watching film or studying the playbook or having meetings or finishing up academics during the spring semester.”
Urich is entering Year 4 on campus and has grown into a leader, while showing a certain kind of selflessness.
A speedy, dual-threat quarterback by trade, he volunteered his talents as a special-teamer his second year on campus. He played his third year mostly as a wide receiver but went back to quarterback when the team entered spring with only two healthy scholarship bodies.
He’s also balancing that with a burgeoning non-profit, one that is helping propagate the “Matter is the minimum” message he put on a protest sign before it went viral.
What’s next for him and his teammates on the field is nothing if not uncertain. For now, they’re back in mandatory workouts, less than a week away from scheduled walk-throughs, part of the extended training camp lead-up to a potential season.
They’re just happy to have a little more to fill their time.
“It’s been great. We’re working hard. Focusing on what we need to focus on,” he said. “Really try to have the leadership be able to push for working hard and grinding and keeping football a priority because we need to be ready for whenever things get going.”
