Somehow, someway Despite the disruptions of a tumultuous year, UW’s academic services team kept student-athletes focused
F
BY MIKE KORD FOR GOHUSKIES MAGAZINE
or many people, 2020 was the most jarring year in recent memory. Anxiety reached new heights as an unpredictable virus spread globally, police clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters in the streets, and a contentious presidential election hovered just ahead. For Kim Durand, the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Student Development at Washington, 2020 was all that and more. More because there were student-athletes who needed academic support in the form of sound advice, good tutoring, and the mass dispersal of laptops and textbooks to those who didn’t have access to them. And let’s not forget about the perpetuity of Zoom conferences. Tutoring, study sessions, advising, team meetings, and staff meetings all went virtual, with athletes scattered around the world. The simplicity of face-to-face contact was replaced by the intricacies of exhausting conference calls. It took determination, selflessness, and creative thinking in the face of an uncharted journey with no compass. How do you support student-athletes in a pandemic, anyway? Durand and the rest of the Student Athlete Academic Services staff figured it out. During the spring quarter, every UW team achieved a GPA of 3.0 or higher. During the 2020 fall quarter, the overall athletic department GPA was 3.42. This was no small achievement. “I can’t think of anything that’s been this extended and unknown, and comprehensive,” Durand said. Counterintuitively, the unknown can be a blessing. Remember March 2020? Had anyone known then the extent to which the virus would upend daily routines, the psychological impact almost certainly would have struck more fiercely. “At the time, it was new and different,” Durand said. “And I think we had a short-term view of it.” Continued on page 28
PAGE 26
GoHUSKIES
