Through the COVID-19 pandemic, local athletic teams have taken to social media to stay connected with teammates and challenge other sports to stay active. Check out this feature, presented by Edward Medical Group.
How It Got Started
With the COVID-19 pandemic putting all spring sports on hold, local teams have turned to social media to stay connected while keeping their distance. Metea Valley’s Soccer Coach Josh Robinson was one of the first to be challenged online: juggle a roll of toilet paper. Once that happened, the rest of the mustang athletic family wanted to join in on the fun.
Robinson: ““What our girls did then, is they compiled all 20 girls varsity at Metea juggling back and fourth to each other, made a really cool thing. And then we posted it and challenged the other teams. But also what came with that was … we have a captains council at our building where all our captains meet with myself, Eric and Dave Mac and in that meeting a big convo of how we engage in such a difficult time and so the idea was let’s compete against each other. So immediately that day the XC runners made their video and then softball came out and then girls and boys volleyball combined and it became a challenge where others have made one.”
Benet Academy Joins In
While Metea has kept the challenges within their own school, other schools are also hitting the internet to provide some entertainment. The Benet Academy Redwings used the San Francisco Giants as a template to create a viral video of their own. The effort to keep the team together is lead by seniors George Michalowski and Colin Gorz.
George: the San Fran Giants, a few years ago, actually did a Full Clubhouse, same thing we did and I remember Coach Lawler, earlier in the year, we were trying to think of content to put out on social media and he was like you gotta do a Full House and we had a bunch of ideas. And then over this quarantine we just haven’t had much to do and so we were looking for content and that’s trending now over social media and we decided to bring back the full clubhouse and the guys loved it.
The only guidelines given by Michalowski and Gorz to their Redwing teammates were to do something random and then wave… and the team did not disappoint.
George: Jack Nash, one of our juniors he was the first one to send me the video and he was taking a shower in his full uniform so once I saw that one I knew it was going to be good.
Colin: I think it’s awesome because every guy had fun with it. We gave them no guidelines. The biggest impact on the other people watching our clips. Coach called me and he had a lot of alums contact him saying the video made an impact on him so that is what we are trying to do, show we are staying positive when our season is on hold. We can stay positive and you can too.
Main Goal: Stay Positive & Connected
With the shelter-in-place extended through April 30th, the IHSA has announced it still has hope for spring sports to take place. The hold up – school needs to resume at the beginning of May. In the meantime, coaches and athletes are just trying to stay positive. These viral videos and competitions certainly help.
Robinson: You have these seniors thinking oh my gosh my career might be done and even for the non-seniors, I love being a part of something I can’t do right now. It was trying to find ways to keep them optimistic whether it’s giving them challenges where … we also have zoom meetings with each other…
Colin: It’s not only us, it’s the whole team just staying together during this unknown time and trying to be positive and have a good attitude and get a hold of some hope that our season will still be there.
For now, every school and team is in a holding pattern until the end of April, but at least we have some quality Twitter content to entertain us.
Check out other features like this one in our Sports Stories!
