Staying positive Area athletes react to suspended season
The Ivy League’s decision to cancel intercollegiate sports during the fall semester impacts many student-athletes who played scholastic sports in Connecticut.
Greenwich’s Gavin Muir was slated to compete for the backup quarterback job at Dartmouth. Instead he, too, will have to wait as the Ivy League figures out its next steps amid the pandemic.
Muir, the 2018 Walter
Camp Connecticut Player of the Year, remains at home, where he’s working out with former high school teammate and Penn running back Tysen Comizio and communicating with coaches via Zoom.
“Obviously it was a huge bummer when I first found out about it,” Muir said of the Ivy League’s decision to table sports until at least Jan. 1. “We had a couple meetings with the team and coaches. We were staying positive the whole time, but it looked like the league was going to do what was safest for students.”
Muir couldn’t argue with that reasoning.
“As hard as it is to wait until Jan. 1,” Muir said, “I guess it just makes the most sense.”
Dartmouth plans to reopen its campus to approximately half its students in September, with first-year students attending in the fall and spring. Muir, a sophomore, will be on campus in the winter. Most classes will remain online to help mitigate the spread of illness.
In the meantime, Muir is staying in shape in case football is able to be played in the spring.
“The backup spot was pretty open,” he said. “I was hoping to have a strong offseason and open some eyes.”
Recent high school graduates Ben Corniello of Hand and Reid Englert of Ridgefield will become teammates at Columbia.
"I feel like it'll give me more time to prepare," said former Hand defensive lineman Ben Corniello, who's headed to Columbia and knows he won't get the same playing time at first as a Lion that he did as a Tiger. "If it's moved, maybe there's more time to catch up to everyone else."
Corniello has been working out and lifting every day through the pandemic. He said freshmen and sophomores will get to campus on Sept. 7, and they expect to be able to practice.
"Hopefully the season
will be played," he said.
Corniello will be joined at Columbia by fellow Connecticut defensive linemen Englert and Newtown’s James Know.
“As you can imagine, I’m really disappointed to say the least,” Englert said. “I’ve been working really hard on strength and conditioning all spring and summer and will continue to do so. I’m just really hoping that we can all get back on campus by the spring semester, and hopefully play some football. The good news is that I’ll be able to practice and lift with the football team this fall and be a part of a great program, which is most important. As far as redshirting, I don’t think that will be necessary because if there is no spring season, I’ll definitely have another year of eligibility. Overall, I’m just excited to at least be able to get to Columbia and join a great group of teammates and coaches.”
Morgan Smith, a 2020 Sacred Heart-Greenwich graduate, is trying to stay optimistic amid the uncertainty around the virus. For now, that’s all she really can do as the winter and spring Ivy League seasons hang in the balance.
“Everything is very up in the air,” said Smith, who will play lacrosse at Penn.
On-campus workouts for the next month have already been canceled, but Smith is planning to be on campus Aug. 25 as the school moves forward with a hybrid instruction model. Smith is eager to get settled in.
“It’ll definitely be good to get on campus, especially for the freshman,” she said. “I know everything won’t be normal.”
In the meantime, Smith is working out at home in Port Chester, N.Y., hoping that lacrosse will go on as scheduled in the spring.
“Everyone is trying to be very optimistic about the situation, trying to focus on the fact that we’re allowed back on campus in the fall,” Smith said. “When we have the chance to play, we have to really capitalize on it. We never know when the last chance we’ll get to play is.”