03-19-2020, 10:07 AM
I thought this was a nice piece on how some college tennis teams reacted to the news of the season getting shut down: https://tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=321798095
Nothing Stanford-specific, but the UNC and UCLA women are both represented, and the main point seemed to be how sudden and fast-moving the story was (of course) and the resiliency of the players.
I, for one, would read the heck out of stories discussing various teams' reactions to the news of their seasons being canceled, what they're doing to take their minds off things, how this affects things like student visas (for Emily Arbuthnott, given that students have been kicked out of housing), grad school applications, etc. The same goes for Stanford alums now in professional sports whose seasons have been interrupted. How are Nicole Gibbs and Kristie Ahn, for example, dealing with the tour being shut down when they're in that band of players who make enough money playing tennis to keep playing tennis, but aren't getting wealthy, given the expenses that come from being a tour player. Much like a number of restaurants and retail stores won't come out the other side of this, what about the careers of former Stanford student-athletes, especially those that depend on weekly prize money rather than guaranteed contracts? If they left early, is now when they switch gears and come back and do spring quarter remotely? How are people training while being under a shelter-in-place order in the Bay Area (if they're still nearby)? How is everyone coping?
These are people we've connected with (albeit in a surface-level sports fan kind of way), and that connection to Stanford athletics is one of the things that keeps us connected to the university itself. This has been quite an upheaval for everyone, but Stanford remains a community, even for those of us live far away. With social distancing and self-quarantining, maintaining those community connections in any way we can is important. With no sports scores to look at or game recaps to read, I think all of us could benefit from the Athletic Department using its now-largely-idle hands to put out some human interest pieces like this.
Nothing Stanford-specific, but the UNC and UCLA women are both represented, and the main point seemed to be how sudden and fast-moving the story was (of course) and the resiliency of the players.
I, for one, would read the heck out of stories discussing various teams' reactions to the news of their seasons being canceled, what they're doing to take their minds off things, how this affects things like student visas (for Emily Arbuthnott, given that students have been kicked out of housing), grad school applications, etc. The same goes for Stanford alums now in professional sports whose seasons have been interrupted. How are Nicole Gibbs and Kristie Ahn, for example, dealing with the tour being shut down when they're in that band of players who make enough money playing tennis to keep playing tennis, but aren't getting wealthy, given the expenses that come from being a tour player. Much like a number of restaurants and retail stores won't come out the other side of this, what about the careers of former Stanford student-athletes, especially those that depend on weekly prize money rather than guaranteed contracts? If they left early, is now when they switch gears and come back and do spring quarter remotely? How are people training while being under a shelter-in-place order in the Bay Area (if they're still nearby)? How is everyone coping?
These are people we've connected with (albeit in a surface-level sports fan kind of way), and that connection to Stanford athletics is one of the things that keeps us connected to the university itself. This has been quite an upheaval for everyone, but Stanford remains a community, even for those of us live far away. With social distancing and self-quarantining, maintaining those community connections in any way we can is important. With no sports scores to look at or game recaps to read, I think all of us could benefit from the Athletic Department using its now-largely-idle hands to put out some human interest pieces like this.