It has been 47 weeks — close to a full year’s 52 — since sports were first shut down at Chapman University due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since that fateful March 13, 2020, players have gone through a yo-yo effect of seasons canceled, Zoom workouts to take their place and a return in the form of socially distanced practices, only for another regression to Zoom.

What could possibly be next? Well, not many know. 

“There haven’t been any changes anytime recently,” said Steven Olveda, Chapman’s sports information director. “There was some talk about playing fall sports in the spring and starting the winter sports off in the spring semester; the whole conference collectively decided that wasn't going to be a viable option anymore.”

Per The Panther’s last update Dec. 7, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) had canceled competition for all fall and winter sports. This was disappointing news to many fall and winter coaches and athletes, who were anticipating that their seasons were merely delayed and would eventually start back up with an altered schedule in the spring.

Although Chapman has weekly COVID-19 testing set up for those back on campus and a vaccine for the coronavirus — which hadn’t been released during the time of the last update — is available to some segments of the public, the fates of spring sports programs still remain up in the air. Currently, Orange County is in the most restrictive, purple tier of the COVID-19 county watchlist. If conditions improve, student athletes will be able to resume practices on campus. Otherwise, they will continue to conduct all their activities online. 

The current conditions, however, would restrict any traveling athletes may do around the state and country if a spring schedule was put into place, something Olveda believes is beneficial to students’ safety and health.

“(The NCAA’s decision) makes it a little easier for all of us,” Olveda said. “Because of the state of the world right now, travel is really hard, and if you look at a map of Division III (teams), the SCIAC is kind of isolated.”

That limits the number of potential opponents Chapman teams could play in the spring, but fortunately for the Panthers, the NCAA has announced that it will lower game requirements for teams to compete in spring championships. This would allow spring programs to begin play in mid-March while still being able to schedule the minimum amount of contests necessary to qualify for those championships, even in a potential “bubble”-style format. 

In the meantime, coaches, such as women’s lacrosse head coach Dan Kirkpatrick, will face the challenge of virtually maintaining team chemistry until a physical restart.

“During the fall, we were doing weekly team Zoom meetings (where) we were talking about some offense and defense, some of our schemes,” Kirkpatrick said. “We were also doing some team building stuff (like), ‘If you're stuck in a raft, what are the 20 items you take with you?’”

On top of team meetings over Zoom, athletes have also kept active with different training programs. 

“We had to take two workout classes, our coach made us,” said Avery High, a midfielder on the women’s lacrosse team. “So we took advanced weights and tennis. We got weekly workouts from those coaches that we would have to do.”

The future might be no clearer than it was since that original March 13 announcement, and while High holds out hope, she’s simultaneously preparing for the worst. 

“It’s easy to say (I’m excited to play) because I truly would love that,” High said. “But just looking at how things are right now, I’d be more confident to say (we’ll resume) next year.”