The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
For Wright, hoops has taken a back seat
It’s been roughly three months since Villanova men’s basketball coach Jay Wright had in-person contact with his players and staff.
Like everyone else, he’s been stuck at home in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Wright has stayed in touch with them by using Zoom and FaceTime in addition to telephone calls and text messages. Lately, the conversations have been more about social events than basketball or the pandemic.
“We’re in one of the most challenging times of our coaching career, even before the incident with George Floyd,” Wright said in a recent Zoom interview. “The coronavirus, talking guys through that was difficult, and then recently talking to a lot of young men who are really hurting. Usually on your team you have one guy that has something going on and you can rally around him. (Now), you have a bunch of guys, an entire team and coaches, who are really, really hurting. We first just listened and tried to be empathetic and let guys know that we love them. We care for them and we felt their pain. Most recently
we’ve talked about what we can do as a team.”
Floyd’s death, at the hands of police in Minneapolis, sparked protests around the world to end police brutality and racism. Several of Wright’s players, former and current, have taken part in such demonstrations.
Toronto Raptors star Kyle Lowry and Darryl Reynolds participated in protests in Philadelphia, as did senior forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree, along with several other area college basketball players. Donte DiVincenzo of the Milwaukee Bucks was seen marching on social media. Forward Saddiq Bey, who announced his intention to stay in the NBA Draft Tuesday, said he marched in Washington D.C.
“That event for sure hurt me and my family and my community,” Bey said in reference to Floyd’s killing. “We have adversity of that kind every year and it’s sad to see. You see that a lot, especially recently. This one was kind of the boiling point, the tipping point, of the injustice that has been going on.
“Personally, it hurt and it hurt millions of people across the globe. Personally I’ve been to protests in D.C. Not as many as I should have been but I did go to see the support and just the communal bond that everybody had. It was peaceful every day of the week. It was a beautiful thing. It’s an unfortunate cause and unfortunate event, but I think it’s really going to have an impact in the future.”
Many in the program, including Wright, have been active on social media. Wright tweeted out a message on Wednesday, entitled “Fourteen Reasons Why …
Nova Nation Your Vote Matters 11.3.20.” The tweet includes a picture of all 14 players each with a message on the front of his jersey. The messages, in all capital letters, include “Black Live Matter, I Can’t Breathe, If Not Us, Who, If Not Now When” and the names of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a 26-yearold health care worker who was shot multiple times and killed during what appears to be a wrongly motivated police raid of her Louisville, Ky. apartment.
Wright isn’t just encouraging his players to vote, he wants them to be knowledgeable when they enter the voting booth.
“We’re putting together a program educating the guys as to who the mayor is, who the town supervisor is, who the chief of police is in their hometown, whether those positions are elected positions or appointed positions and teaching them how to use their pressure, their protests and their influence to effect systematic change,” Wright said. “It’s now turned into an educational conversation where in the beginning it was purely one of a loving, compassionate conversation.”
Basketball has been part of the Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls, too. The Wildcats are expected to be one of the top teams in the country even with the loss of Bey to the NBA, so keeping the players physically fit, as well as dealing with the mental stress of going through the coronavirus pandemic and the social upheaval while not being on campus has also been a priority. Strength coach John Shackleton sends out programs the players can do at home to stay in shape.
As for when the players can return, that is up in the air. Wright said athletic director Mark Jackson and his staff are going through protocols for a safe return, but that no timeline for that return has been established.
Colleges and universities around the state did receive some good news on Wednesday when Gov. Tom Wolf announced collegiate sports sanctioned by the NCAA as well as intramural and club sports can resume in-person activities in the yellow and green phases. However, that decision is up to the discretion of the individual institutions.
Wright, though, is leaving nothing to chance.
“We are preparing to start school,” Wright said. “We are prepared for our guys to go through the summer workouts, on their own, and the first time we see them would be at the end of August when we start school. That’s what we’re prepared for. If anything’s better than that, if we can get them back right now, that’s going to be gravy.”
Wright hopes that the season starts on time but is ready for anything, including the possibility of playing games without fans. Wright likened games without spectators to a scrimmage, which are conducted with the two teams, referees and a few support personnel like clock operators and scorekeepers.
“I can’t see right now having fans, but I tell you, the players and coaches would be less impacted by (not) having fans,” Wright said. “We love it, but no one gets to see these scrimmages that we play against opposing teams. They are ferocious and we love it. It’s a kind of weird competitiveness. It’s kind of like being in a cage almost, there’s no one else around, just two teams sparring. It’s kind of cool.
“We’d be OK with that. I think we have to be prepared, though, for anything, from adjusting the league schedule to starting Jan. 1. I think we’ve got to be prepared for anything.”