Column: Mendenhall and UVa press forward amid uncertainty

In what might be the understatement of the year, the last five months have been anything but ordinary. They’ve been brutal for many and detrimental in so many ways for so many others. There’s no way to escape that reality.

As college sports grapples with the continued impacts of the pandemic, as leagues continue to shut down or weigh the possibility of doing so, there’s a lot to be said for perspective.

While I haven’t heard every football coach in America speak to the situation facing their team, listening to Bronco Mendenhall expand on his own thought processes and the way he frames things for his players is as refreshing as it is sobering.

Monday morning, Mendenhall and Co. stepped out onto new grass fields for the first practice of fall camp. The site where Ralph Sampson used to wow Wahoo fans has now sprung a fresh gridiron. Trotting out onto the former University Hall landscape should have been the source of great celebration. And while Mendenhall didn’t let the moment go by without praising the new fields as a “symbolic and meaningful marker” of what the program has done in the last four years, focusing too long on anything other than the pandemic seemed to lack common sense or tact.

And Mendenhall isn’t the type to do anything of the sort.

“I've been really impressed,” he said of his players, “with their motivation, their resilience, their leadership, but also the structure that we provided through this unique and challenging time…It’s been an amazing period of growth I think for all of us.

“I’ve worked hard,” Mendenhall added, “to frame this time period not in relation to if we'll play or if we won't play but to how much growth can we accomplish daily? What kind of circumstances and what kind of program can I provide for growth that will be meaningful? And also, how much fun can I have our players have daily in the meantime? And that's helped make some sense of the circumstances we've been under for quite some time.”

Per UVa, since testing started with the return of the football team on July 5th, a total of 238 student-athletes have been tested for COVID-19. Four have produced a positive test. Mendenhall's team has had 112 student-athletes tested and there have been three positive results, none of which have come since the school's report on July 24th or required hospitalization.

Over the course of a roughly half-hour session Monday, Mendenhall covered a variety of topics. He talked about not feeling rushed thanks to a considerable amount of time in virtual team meetings with his players despite missing spring ball. He spoke about the additional graduate transfers the program had brought in this offseason. He talked about the first week of practice and how the team would use the time.

But he also had to talk about other leagues looking to shut down. He had to speak on “controlling what we can control” and how impressed he’s been with his team’s buy in on keeping the virus away. He also had to discuss the difficulty of the present time where, despite his team’s success inside the bubble, he worries not only about what’s happening nationally but what could happen locally once the bubble doesn’t keep his players insulated.

It’s 2020 and that’s just the way it is.

“The bubble that we've created, once students arrive and our players are asked to go outside the bubble to class, live outside the bubble for residence, it becomes an entirely different management issue which the world and the nation hasn't solved,” he said. “And so everyone has said ‘health and safety first and foremost.’ I'm exactly there. And so I think we've done a great job with our program in this virtual bubble for this time being. That does not mean it's sustainable or lasting or anyone else has a handle on it to this point. I think there's a lot of work that still needs to be done.”

Sports, of course, is supposed to give us a break from reality. It’s supposed to provide an escape. It at times can give us hope. We can’t fault those involved in sports when the realities are inescapable, the challenges too great.

What we can commend is honesty and leadership, two things that Mendenhall is laser focused on providing.

That’s why, hearing him describe the most difficult portion of this pandemic as it relates to sports, I couldn’t help but be both empathetic for the players and also hope desperately that they can return to the field for real competition soon.

“When you're working specifically toward a goal with a very clear start date,” Mendenhall began, “and you have plenty of time to prepare for that, there's a singular focus and vision and preparation model, and certainty that is so comforting that it provides really unique boundaries that you can operate within to maintain efficiency. With so many variances on the outside of start/stop, schedule, new schedule, continued start/stop, there is an existing emotional drain and distraction that is very difficult in terms of managing the external environment that—if you're not careful—does spill over into our competitive work, of the lifting and the running and the strategy.

“And quite frankly, maybe the biggest competitive work is a psychology of just trying to care for the mental health of our team and keep them positive and optimistic and focusing on just one horizon at a time and again what they can influence and focusing on that,” he added. “There's so many things we can't, even though they're occupying our thoughts. So I would say the No. 1 thing that's manifested to me that has been a surprise is the mental health of our student athletes has risen right to the forefront of the things that I am managing on a daily basis, and just the uncertainty and what it might mean and the daily variances. That in and of itself is probably something that hasn't been written about or considered enough. But right now, that's at the top of my list in terms of managing our team and trying to help them have have the best experience throughout all this.”

There is no doubt that practices are built around replacing a record-setting quarterback, testing a revamped running game with an experienced O-line, looking for succession in the secondary, and seeing how a slew of rookies might look now that they’ve made it to the next level.

But there is so much more going on than football and to pretend otherwise is the acme of foolishness.

“I would love to say I'm just coaching football,” Mendenhall said. “Actually, my coaches are coaching football more right now. I'm simply coaching the social distancing and the cultural pandemic protocols necessary to pull it all off. And to be honest, as we started with just masks and then we put on helmets and now we then start to line up across from each other each day’s just requiring new protocols and new emphasis. And so most of my thoughts are managing that part so that the program can actually go forward with the strategic elements. But almost all my time is nothing other than the management of the virus at this point.”

“Managing” the virus might seem impossible. But it’s a reality, even for football coaches. Especially for football coaches.

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