FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Saint Rose’s Karen Haag answers questions on how COVID-19 impacts student-athletes
Karen Haag is the newly appointed Associate Athletic Director at The College of Saint Rose. She took some time to discuss how the conroavirus is impacting student-athletes, athletic recruiting and the campus.
Does the athletic department have any plans to move forward, in hopes spring sports will resume?
“This thing has evolved so quickly, it’s really hard to know what the next steps are going to be. With the NCAA cancelling March Madness, the NE10
cancelled everything, including practice until April 13, and now with the new CDC guidelines that just came out [Monday] morning, of gatherings no more than 50, anywhere, I think it’s likely that this spring’s season is over. Many, many leagues across the country have completely cancelled spring sports.”
“From a meeting I was in Wednesday (3/11) to a meeting I was in Friday (3/13), so much happened so quickly, but initially the shutdown was going to be just for the two weeks. That was before we understood the magnitude of this thing.”
Update: On Wednesday March 18, 2020 around 9:00 am, the Northeast-10 Conference Council of Presidents has unanimously extended the suspension of all team activities and competitions (in all 24 NE10 sports) on member institution campuses to the end of the 2020 spring semester, and all NE10 Spring Championships have been canceled. What is your message to students who have questions about their NCAA eligibility?
“It’s my understanding that they’re going to be able to restore the eligibility for spring sports.” Just because a student’s eligibility is restored, doesn’t mean their scholarships will be. With incoming recruits and returning players getting an extra year of eligibility, while colleges only have a limited amount of scholarship money available, have there been any conversations yet on how that will be handled and how you’ll help student-athletes finish their athletic careers?
“I don’t have an answer to that at this time.”
“We have just been in crisis mode at Saint Rose. All of those questions, now that we’re working remotely, we’ll be meeting to discuss. I know the President’s Cabinet has been on a call at 4:00 everyday. Now it might be up to two calls a day, just to expedite getting our students home safely. We moved all of our students out of the residence halls, unless they had some kind of hardship that required them to stay.”
“I’m sure that we’ll get there, but I don’t know when.” What are the current requirements for athletic teams at Saint Rose while their games are suspended? Are they allowed to participate in athletic activities and to what extent?
“They’re treating this like a summer vacation period, so coaches are not allowed to require their student-athletes to workout. They can provide them with a workout that’s voluntary, but they can’t have them checking in.” How are coaches communicating with players regarding the season being suspended? What are those conversations like?
“I think a lot of [coaches] are more concerned, especially for the seniors, of their mental well-being and their mental state, with all the anxiety that surrounds this; it’s pretty scary. We have such a great coaching staff at Saint Rose, I’m sure they are in contact quite a bit, encouraging, supporting, and trying to keep morale up, as much as they can.” What about recruiting? Do you have plans to make the recruiting process virtual in any ways?
“That’s going to be on our coaches to closely stay in touch with their recruits and engage with them. I’m sure admissions will be coming up with a plan. Every college in America is affected by this and kind of in the same boat.” While basketball at Saint Rose was finished, lots of championship tournaments were impacted. Where were your thoughts as these decisions were being made?
“With the NCAA, they had student-athletes to think about and seniors to think about. Before we understood the magnitude of this thing, I think there were a lot of considerations being made, but I think the NBA really got the ball rolling.”
“For men’s and women’s Division II basketball regionals, our eight teams were at the sight ready to play. They cancelled Thursday night before the games were supposed to start last Friday.”
“We’ve never seen anything like this, and I hope that we don’t ever again. Now we just have to hope that our country weathers the storm, with as little loss of life as possible.” Have there been any positive moments you’ve been able to take away from all of this?
“On Friday and Saturday morning, I assisted other staff members, from athletics and other departments at the college in physically helping our students move out. The sense of community that I felt during that process was really, extremely heart-warming and made me so proud to be a part of our community. Watching everyone come together, helping our students and their families get packed up to go home during a stressful time, I think we were able to provide a lot of assistance to those families, so that was a real positive for me, I felt like we really showed our true colors.”
“It’s amazing how a crisis of this magnitude can change your perspective, instantly, on what’s important. If I were coaching now and was told I’d have to cancel practice for three days, because of x, y, or z, I would have been panicking, thinking, we have to practice, where can we go, [practice] is the most important thing ever. Now you’re cancelling entire seasons. When you realize the magnitude of all this, you realize how precious our opportunities to play and compete are.”
“Hopefully, when we can all go gather again, we have a much deeper appreciation for our ability to compete and play and practice and for our ability to be part of the community.”
“I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she was watching a Mets’ game with Gary Carter playing on TV. That was an old game.”