Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 13 No. 1 | August 2020

10 Inside Hokie Sports Uncertainty affects people in many different ways. Unfortunately, we all have been forced to identify exactly how it affects us over the past six months, particularly those who work in the world of college athletics. And uncertainty remains an unrelenting companion in the lives of those who compete, coach, or make their living working in this world. For me, this time of year generally is consumed with preparations for the football season. My daily routine involves attending football practices, observing which players made dramatic physical strides in the offseason, checking in on position battles, and chatting with coaches about their expectations for the year. I greatly enjoy this process. I take tremendous pride in our level of preparation—both in our game presentation and in the logistics that make that presentation possible. Around this time of year, I get excited about the return of the students to campus and the level of activity that comes with that. Blacksburg is a quaint and quiet place during the summer. The fall brings back the buzz and the action. This wildly unique year has not brought back that routine, or the comfort in the familiarity of the daily rhythm that leads to the season. Instead, this year, fall brings more uncertainty and the anxiety that comes with it. The past few weeks delivered urgency to our doorstep, as the days to make decisions dwindled. Fall has turned into a situation never before seen in college athletics, because of a virus that persistently ravages our old way of life. For the student-athletes who returned to campus in June, life remains a rollercoaster of conflicting news cycles—optimism and pessimism intertwining with regularity, each new tweet and news story either providing hope or dread. Young people being bombarded with case numbers, safety protocols, and personal protective equipment, all while the virus and the debate over their competitive futures rages around them. The discipline required of them to continue chasing their collective dreams out of the reach of our society as a whole. The recklessness of the latter threatening the way of life of the former. The resiliency of our student-athletes and their willingness and ability to adhere to this new normal continues to be nothing short of remarkable, particularly with no guarantee that their collective efforts will deliver the desired results—the ability to compete. For administrators, the pressure has been enormous, being tasked with solving a problem that, for the most part, offers no acceptable answers. Their decades of experience and wisdom continue to be challenged by something that cannot be repelled with logic and creating the added frustration of knowing that their decisions impact the security of the entire collegiate athletics model. They know the ripple effects of those decisions impact thousands of people whose lives revolve around the sports that they coach, play, or support, with stakes that rise above the level of financial fitness and arrive at the summit—physical health. Maybe not surprisingly, with ramifications that will be felt for years if not decades, the way forward has not been uniform. In reality, how could it be? Again, this is a problem without any palatable answers. The ACC decided to press forward, along with the SEC and Big 12, and we currently stand with a fractured college football season—something unfathomable at the conclusion of the previous season. I simultaneously have marveled at the magnitude of the decisions made and at the people with the responsibility of making them. I continue to maintain firmly that each of those decision-makers attempts to make the best decisions for the collective best, especially those here at Virginia Tech. I know the people in those rooms and on those Zoom calls, and I know that they are tortured in trying to dissect the optimum way to proceed. I find myself extremely grateful for them because I know I would struggle mightily with the weight of those decisions producing the desirable outcomes. For those who work in athletics, these also have been tense times, digesting each kernel of information with each passing day and taking stock of what it means to their professional and personal futures. Anxiety comes from not only the uncertainty of the outcome, but also the helplessness to affect our own existence. They, and we, hold on to optimism and stay positive that we ultimately will be able to return to the security of the lives we lived in the not-too-distant past. For the members of Hokie Nation and the millions of fans across the country, the tranquility of summer has been interrupted by the unknown of the fall. Each undoubtedly has been profoundly impacted during the pandemic, and all wonder if the distractions of sports will return to provide comfort from the things happening around them. All of this is a long way of saying I feel for everybody. I continue to be amazed by our student-athletes and what they endure emotionally for the chance at continuing to pursue their passion. I remain awed at the weight of the burden that the administrators and decision-makers carry and how they stoically carry it. I worry for my friends and colleagues throughout college athletics who ponder what lies ahead for them and their families. I hurt for those who work in conferences that made the painful decision to push pause. And I sympathize with members of Hokie Nation and fans everywhere who desperately need college athletics to return to their lives. I am certainly not immune to any of this. In March, I was completely confident in my way of life and what I felt the future held for me and my family. Six months later, that security has been forever shaken. But, like the courageous student-athletes, I press on, believing that this too shall pass. And in the meantime, I stand dedicated to augmenting the with Jon Laaser Persistence and Uncertainty