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Writer's pictureCoach Kendra Aaron

Coaching Through a Pandemic





What?. From Cloud 9 to _________.

I don’t think anyone in the world could have seen this coming. A virus. Something that can’t even be seen has shut the WORLD down. The day to day as we knew a month ago, no longer exists. In time it may return but one thing that this pandemic has proven to be certain is, ALL we have is right now. As I currently sit here in day 23 of stay at home, the last month has been a complete whirlwind of emotions. With basketball, we won our Regional Championship on March 6th, just barely a month ago we were on cloud 9, celebrating that we (Central Arizona College) would finally be returning to the NJCAA National Tournament, this year set to be in Lubbock, TX. The official bracket would be released on March 9th, so we excitedly waited to find out what seed we were going to draw.

The rush of tasks that needed to be completed would be sent as soon as bracket was announced. We would need to send the official roster, team photo, individual photos, highlights. We would need to upload our last game, get the hotel confirmed, get the bus scheduled and confirmed. There would be so many things to do in this short amount of time before we would be departing on March 14th. We planned for a time where friends, family and fans could all come to see the bus off to Lubbock at 2:45pm, March 14th. When they announced us as the very last team in the bottom right of the bracket, WE WERE READY, to say the least! We were set for the first round to be a bye and we even prepared for an extremely late tip off time 9:30pm the first game played. We were ready to practice later knowing we needed to adjust. But all of that changed…

Photo by veeterzy on Pexels.com



WTF.

On March 12th, the NJCAA National Tournament was postponed. We were disappointed but not distraught because we knew we would still have a chance… just when everything cleared up.

As our players took some much needed rest, on March 16th, the NJCAA announced they had decided to cancel this year’s national tournament.

This was devastating. It was a blow that we feared would be coming in light of recent events, but we hoped for our players sake that their efforts of the season, going 28-3 overall and 22-0 in conference would give them a chance at competing for the title. We hoped that it was all a dream.

But of course, it wasn’t.

Our players all went home, or were already there, and classes would resume in a couple weeks online for the remainder of the semester.

And just like that, the season was officially over… WTF!



CHAPTER 1. Moving Forward

As we now enter our 23rd day of stay at home, I reflect on the last couple of weeks and the point when reality sank in that THIS is the new normal. On April 1st, I looked at my calendar and it truly hit me that we have an entire month (at least) where stay at home orders will be in place. At that realization, I asked myself “when this is all said and done, what do I want to get out of this time?”

It is so easy to adjust to working at home and just doing your job and letting time just pass you by. I knew for sure that what I don’t want, is the day that stay at home orders get lifted for me to feel like there was so much more that I could have done during this time and I just wasted it away. At that moment, I decided I was going to make it my mission to connect and take the opportunity to reach out to start building some AMAZING new relationships. So here we are…

If I have not had an opportunity to connect with you, yet please feel free to contact me through Facebook messenger so we can have a conversation, I would love to get to know you!

WARNING!!! If you are contacting me for any other reason than a genuine friendly get to know you relationship, PLEASE do not contact me. I am not looking for a date and neither are you (you are just bored – read a book, I can recommend some great ones lol). Thank you, have a great day!

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