Sports

from Kaneland Krier Volume 47 Issue 1

Feature

Sports October 8, 2020

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON COLLEGE RECRUITING BY MADELEINE LITTLE

Editor

The pandemic has an obvious impact on fall sports, but it also has potential implications for student-athletes’ futures. Unfortunately, as a result, some fall sports have been delayed and moved to a different season. This includes football, boys soccer and girls volleyball. These sports have been moved to the spring and will begin on Feb. 15. With this change, the recruitment process will be different this year for those hoping to play sports at the collegiate level. The shifting of the football season could negatively impact the opportunities that seniors have to be scouted by college coaches this fall. Senior Samuel Pryor is an offensive and defensive lineman who is getting recruited to play football at the next level. He has five offers and is talking to multiple other colleges, but Pryor feels that with the football season being moved, he may not have the same chances he would have had in a normal season. “Honestly, I feel like this may hurt our chances of being recruited, but again, out of my control. We [need to] make due with what we got right now,” Pryor said. Several athletes were relying on their senior seasons to show off their talents to college coaches. With the season getting moved, it may be more difficult for the seniors who have not yet been in contact with any colleges. Kaneland’s football staff members are communicating with college coaches year-round about the athletes, so the staff is still doing the best they can to promote opportunities

Photo courtesy of Samuel Pryor Senior Samuel Pryor leads the line of players onto the field. Pryor has been a varsity athlete since his freshman year of high school. 20 Sports

Photo courtesy of Tyler Conklin Senior Tyler Conklin pitches at a scrimmage at Northwestern Medicine Field in Geneva. He has been playing on the Elite Baseball Training team for about a year and has been playing baseball since 2006.

for their student-athletes. Head football coach Patrick Ryan believes that everyone involved in the recruitment process will need to adapt to changes. “Like everything else we’re experiencing now, college recruiting is going to be different. Colleges, recruits and coaches, both high school and college, will need to be flexible and willing to adapt to change,” Ryan said. College coaches are consistently recruiting athletes, even during the off-seasons. Senior Kelsey Modaff is a shooting guard for the Kaneland varsity girls basketball team and is looking to play in college. Modaff also plays for an AAU team outside of school, which is where she receives more opportunities for college coaches to evaluate her skills. She has kept in contact with several Division 2 and 3 schools but is unsure of which one to choose. “Recruitment has been good. Colleges are not afraid to reach out and talk or ask you to come visit and look at campus, so that’s something that’s been super easy,” Modaff said. Kaneland’s basketball teams usually have summer camps, leagues and shootouts throughout June, but with COVID-19 precautions they did not have such opportunities. Currently, the Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has allowed teams to take advantage of 20 preseason contact days. Head varsity girls basketball coach Kelsey Flanagan suggests that athletes who are hoping to have opportunities to play in college should have a realistic highlight reel. “Having a highlight reel is nice, but they want to see you make mistakes and how you handle them, too. Identifying a full game or two to share is a good idea,” Flanagan said. Unlike basketball teams, which were able to play their full regular season last winter, baseball programs had to cancel their entire seasons last spring. Senior Tyler Conklin is a pitcher for the Kaneland baseball team who committed to Eastern Illinois University on July 8, 2020. Conklin has tried not to let the effects of the pandemic influence his mindset. “I never really took a break from my training,” Conklin said. “So I continued my training as if I was in-season, which helped me stay ahead of the game.” Having a good mentality and being coachable are things that colleges commonly look into when recruiting an athlete. Head baseball coach Brian Aversa has coached Conklin over the years to prepare him to be a college-level athlete. “If he can stay healthy and do what he does best, which is pitching, he will be successful. He already has a great opportunity in front of him, and I know he’ll do everything in his power to prepare himself for that,” Aversa said. Many athletes possess multiple traits that college coaches are drawn to, but some athletes may not get the chances they had hoped for to showcase their talents this year. In these times of adversity, our student-athletes are still encouraged to work hard and make progress, regardless of the circumstances.

BY CODY GANZON

Editor

The Kaneland branch of the National FFA Organization had to change several activities to make sure that they adhere to state and local guidelines. FFA’s annual horse judging contest had to limit the amount of people at the event, which was held on Sept. 3 at Creekside Quarter Horses in Hampshire. “We normally bring 12-15 people for horse judging, but now we can only bring four. The others compete virtually,” FFA advisor Brooke Heinsohn said. Some other competing schools have gone all online and have had to resort to non-contact options. Heinsohn had to rearrange almost all FFA activities and create a schedule that would fit every school’s COVID-19 regulations. “Some of the schools we compete against are all virtual and are not available to compete in person. Finding out the logistics of our club and how it’s going to work when we are doing those contests [caused] a couple of hiccups,” Heinsohn said. The changes have had a definite impact on the accessibility of the club. Nonetheless, the students are still hopeful for the FFA year ahead. “I think they are disappointed when we haven’t been able to do things as normal. They are excited that we are still able to get together and meet,” Heinsohn said. FFA student president and senior Grant Baldridge is discouraged by the new precautions. Most of his frustrations come from the fact that the group can’t all meet at the same time. “The atmosphere has gotten more gloomy because we cannot have our events. We can only have five people, and the rest are online. We cannot have all members meet at one place easily, so the club feels more barren than usual. I feel it takes away the experience since we are split up,” Baldridge said.

Photo courtesy of Brooke Heinsohn Sophomore Zoey Pozen, freshmen Georgia Harvell and Dayna Sivert and senior Elizabeth Mattern pose in front of the FFA flag after a horse judging contest at Creekside Quarter Horses in Hampshire.

Photo courtesy of Johnna Rohlman Theater director Rachel Giles leads her cast through a Zoom call as they prepare for their upcoming virtual performance. The production will take place on Oct. 30-31 at 7:00 PM and Nov. 1 at 2:00 PM.

The fall play is another activity that is chel Giles has had to get creative when it being heavily affected by COVID-19 comes to coordinating how the play will precautions. This year, the Kane- run. land theater department is performing “Obviously we cannot do it in person the high school version of Clue. They for safety reasons, and also the auditorihave had to resort to a virtual play, done um is currently being used for a cafeteria,” through Zoom, to follow all guidelines Giles said. concerning the virus. Theater director Ra- For the actual performance, the actors will all set up their rooms to look like one cohesive set. “It’s going to be a little bit different because we’re all in 15 different places, but what we’re doing is we’re all going to have a red curtain held up by PVC pipe so it makes it look like we’re all in one room,” the play’s narrator and senior Johnna Rohlman said. It was uncertain if the play would be able to run at all, considering the precautions necessary to maintain social distancing. “I was really excited when the companies who lease the shows started to switch things over to virtual so that we can still have a season. I know how important it is to so many kids, so I am really excited,” Giles said. Junior Campbell Heiser is determined to make the fall play as successful as possible. This form of play is new to the entire cast and will likely require lots of practice. “I approach the play much differently than I would any other play. Obviously we are doing the whole thing on Zoom, which will be much more difficult, so we are going to have to do rehearsals over Zoom. I am personally going to need to practice a lot more because we are not going to be doing this in person,” Heiser said. Activities 21