By Holden Davitian and Jingsia Hathorne, Staff Editors
Author’s note: This article was initially focused on illustrating how sports teams within the Bi-Co have adapted to practices, but just as life took a turn in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it took an extra turn with the Bi-Co community. The strike began before more than half of the interviews were conducted. Instead of just exploring how athletes as a team worked together through a global pandemic, we got to see how they worked together in their community against institutional oppression that runs deep in America’s history. Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges as student bodies worked together to identify just a few of the problematic aspects of both establishments. The community experienced clashing arguments about how we as students should resolve, educate, and fix the racism on our campuses. The interviews conducted in this piece do not cover or represent all of the experiences student athletes in the Bi-Co have had during the strike. The athletes that we were able to contact and talk with were not BIPOC students and only provided accounts of what has happened in their teams to the best of their ability.
All humans need support systems in their lives. How they look may vary from person to person, but they always provide the same feelings of belongingness and comfort we seek. Within the Bi-Co, there are many social and extracurricular groups that serve this purpose. The athletic teams are just one example of individuals who have demonstrated perseverance in order to maintain and build that bond of trust so they can reach their end goal, whether that means winning a game or building a special small community within the Bi-Co.
Bryn Mawr and Haverford are unique because they are NCAA Division III (D-III) schools. D-III athletes are students who “basically choose to play sports for fun,” says Morgan Nicora, Assistant Fitness Center Director and Strength & Conditioning Coach at Haverford. In the Bi-Co, student athletes get the advantage of being placed into an environment where they play for the same objective—to win—yet simultaneously get to create a new meaning for what it means to be an athlete: constant teamwork, even outside of practice. Working “off the field” has become a new normal for many student athletes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing them and their coaches to be extra creative in keeping the teams motivated and close-knit despite the lack of time spent practicing together.
This team mentality has proven to be an advantage during a period where isolation and loneliness is a recurring theme in students’ lives. The restrictions put into place to ensure the health and safety of the Bi-Co community have definitely impacted the way student athletes function, but everyone’s health and safety is still the number one priority. Nicora explains that the athletic departments have taken numerous measures to ensure that the safety guidelines are met, such as breaking everyone up into “functional units consisting of nine athletes and one coach” as well as moving all of the strength and conditioning equipment outside onto the field. Within the functional units, Nicora describes how coaches are constantly making sure to say, “Six feet! Six feet!” and, “Masks up! Cover your nose!,” in addition to taking everyone’s temperature and dispensing hand sanitizer.
Overall, Nicora states that the athletic departments had to get “very creative and make the best of it” in terms of what types of activities they could do outdoors. This theme of perseverance seems to be a common thread throughout the semester where student athletes are trading in hugs for “air-fives” and team runs for partner runs. According to Nicora, all of them are “athletes at heart and they want to be practicing no matter what’s going on,” demonstrating their passion for their sport, whether that means improving their skills or keeping the team spirit alive.
Haverford cross country runner Hedy Goodman ‘23 describes the learning curve of being an on-campus student athlete during the pandemic, explaining that “it’s a lot of learning the area and making sure that I tell myself that COVID still applies when I leave campus and that I am reflecting Haverford’s Honor Code and COVID policy right as soon as I step foot off campus.”
Athletes at the Bi-Co are welcomed to their teams the moment they step foot on campus. However, it is clear that this year has been somewhat “unique” for many students, particularly for the first-years. Two Bi-Co freshman athletes shared their experiences on campus as first-years with The Bi-College News. Kaj Jensen ‘24 is on the men’s lacrosse team at Haverford and Jeanne Wolkiewicz ‘24 is on the women’s soccer team at Bryn Mawr.
Jensen’s team is separated into pods of nine athletes distanced six feet apart for the entire practice. The team has four practices a week: two practices and two lifts that usually begin at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. Jensen describes that they are “pretty normal, but less focused on cardio because of the masks,” which makes for shorter practices. Experiencing college during COVID has been “unexpected and not always in a terrible way, but in a way where you’re like ‘alright…this isn’t ideal.’ It’s not what I expected, but I have to keep going through it,” Jensen explains. Despite the disruptions to campus life, Jensen makes it clear that he is “grateful to be here and honestly just more excited to experience college when it’s more normal.” Many of his friends’ colleges have not welcomed anyone to campus this past semester, showing him just how fortunate he is to be able to attend college in-person.
The lacrosse team has creatively welcomed Jensen in by showing how they can follow COVID-19 guidelines and still bond together safely. Some activities include watching NBA finals or hockey matches. Others are friendly competitions, ranging from eating or drinking as fast as they can to seeing how many pushups they can do and who can run the fastest mile. The team also holds group check-in meetings over Zoom to stay on track with one another.
Regarding the student athlete experience at Bryn Mawr for a first-year, Wolkiewicz explains that she is still able to get in at least four practices a week, and although they usually consist of only two or three athletes at a time, her team has also gotten creative to ensure that their team spirit is sustained. “We play soccer golf in pairs weekly to keep up the competition and also continue a game day tradition called ‘secret psych,’ where teammates typically decorate their secret psych’s locker before games,” Wolkiewicz describes. The team has also been getting each other sweet treats, thoughtful gifts, and even making memes to decorate teammates’ rooms.
As a first-year, Wolkiewicz has greatly appreciated how her team’s upperclassmen have “wholeheartedly taken the first-years under their wings.” Although they might not always get the chance to practice on the field together, it is clear that Wolkiewicz and the rest of Bryn Mawr’s soccer team have found an incredible balance between maintaining their soccer skills in a safe manner while also making time for fun and quirky bonding experiences. Like Jensen, Wolkiewicz expresses deep gratitude for having been able to make the most of the semester on-campus, and recognizes her team’s dedication to persevering.
Bryn Mawr field hockey player Paige Davis ‘23 explains that while the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the appearance of teams, student athletes can still help each other build athletic skills and bond thanks to virtual resources. The team holds bi-weekly hangouts and Tuesday night activities where remote student athletes can participate in skill-building activities with their teammates. Davis states how thankful she is for these opportunities as they “really help me feel like I am still a part of the team.”
This past semester has given rise to numerous changes on the Bi-Co campuses. The exact teamwork established by the dedication and creativity athletic teams used to cope with the pandemic was a driving force for the commitment and passion in engaging in the strikes that began on both campuses in late October. The strikes’ purpose was to disrupt day-to-day campus operations to fight for BIPOC justice and for the administration’s acknowledgement and fulfillment of published demands. A full list of both sets of demands as well as timelines of the strike can be found on The Bi-College News website.
Morgan Nicora, Hedy Goodman, and Kaj Jensen made it clear that supporting their Black peers and BIPOC students in general is the most crucial goal. Nicora stated there was an “instant consensus that we [the Athletic Department] are going to stand with our Black and Brown student athletes.” Nicora uses the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SAIC) as an example of a program that supports BIPOC students at their institutions, explaining that they “have representatives for each team, [who] may be African-American or White or Asian. […] they will have meetings with the coach and team to provide updates on what they feel like we should be doing better to promote anti-racism,” Nicora states. “They provide a bridge to student athletes that feel like there are issues going on in the community.” This program is ultimately meant to ensure that all athletes feel safe in their sport’s environment.
When Haverford’s strike first began, Bryn Mawr striked in solidarity. Social media across the Bi-Co community exploded with educational posts on the racial issues the institutions had not dealt with, many sharing personal experiences involving administration and peer discrimination. “I’d never seen this many people use their social media to share one thing about a school,” Jensen stated. “It’s a unique situation where there is action being taken against the school.” While the strike began strong, many students became divided in their opinion of an indefinite strike until demands were to be met. When asked about what it says about the Bi-Co community that we’re still actively engaging and talking about Black Lives Matter movement when it seems like the rest of the world has already moved on, Goodman responded that, “[Killing someone] should never be the alternative, that should never be a resort, not even the last resort, it just shouldn’t exist. […] I think it [the strike] gives us the grounds that we need to begin to spark that institutional change.”
The strikes meant to disrupt the normal functioning of the community to fight for institutional change, and most students were able to see the greater significance of what they were sacrificing—including the athletic schedule they had just developed. Just as COVID-19 challenged the Bi-Co community, the strike used collective actions to fight for demands and institutional change. Overall, both the pandemic and the strikes have forced these student athletes to adapt quickly and creatively to strive and make a safe place and environment where all minority groups can feel safe. This semester has been very unconventional for student athletes. Yet they will be able to take their perseverance, creativity, and their ambition for change into the semesters that follow, ultimately contributing to a stronger and more equitable Bi-Co community.
Image credit: Haverford College Athletics. Image may not represent persons interviewed in the above article.
