“Patience and Flexibility: PSU, UP Prep for Upcoming Basketball Campaigns” – Sport Oregon Voices
Portland State University and University of Portland join other Oregon Division 1 schools in ability to start their basketball seasons.
With the start of their 2020-21 basketball seasons now a week away, the University of Portland and Portland State – much like their many Division I counterparts across the nation – are eagerly ramping up for a new campaign, albeit an unusual one.
Because as we’ve come to know, conducting any competitive sports season during a pandemic is challenging. What was once rock-solid predictable is now tentative. Things can change on a dime, and we’ve seen it play out – even at the professional level – with postponements, cancellations and a pervasive, general sense of the unknown seemingly peering around every corner, waiting to upend our once-normal at a second’s notice.
Whereas our local college basketball teams typically rally around familiar competitive mantras – and arenas packed full of students, alumni and fans – now a more pragmatic tone canvases the playing field, or court in this case.
“It’s all about patience and flexibility right now,” said Valerie Cleary, director of athletics for Portland State.
That patience was rewarded recently, when the Oregon governor’s office granted both PSU and UP an exemption from COVID-19 restrictions, serving as a critical step to resuming full-contact practices for their basketball programs, and paving the way for both the men’s and women’s teams to be able to begin playing games. As it had for the Oregon and Oregon State basketball programs, the governor’s office has given both Portland-based Division I schools the same opportunity to work with the Oregon Health Authority to meet and even exceed the outlined health and safety standards to resume full activities.
While both UP and PSU await the final seal of approval on their submitted protocol that details each school’s planned COVID testing and symptom-check procedures, contact-tracing, quarantine and isolation protocols, how teams will travel, game-day operations and other important logistics, they are grateful for the level of communication and sense of understanding they’ve received from Oregon Governor Kate Brown and her staff.
“We are very sensitive to the battles the governor’s office is fighting, and I am incredibly grateful that we had transparent dialogue with them since March,” said Scott Leykam, vice president for athletics at the University of Portland. “It just shows how committed the state is and shows the value in the business of sport. We feel really good about the people we work with at the state.”
Since March, a group including representatives from Sport Oregon and the state’s professional, collegiate and amateur sports entities has been in regular, collective dialogue with the governor’s office as, together, they tackle the many issues and obstacles that have challenged or altered their individual and collective sports endeavors.
“As we have all navigated the many challenges presented to our sports community by the pandemic, we are proud of the camaraderie and collaboration amongst our local sports organizations, and we are most appreciative of the ongoing dialogue our industry has been able to have with the governor’s office,” said Jim Etzel, CEO of Sport Oregon. “For us, the challenges faced over the last nine months have shown that our mission is broader than many would have imagined, and we couldn’t be more pleased to be able to serve as a valued and nimble resource to our many sports partners during such unusual times as these.”
In other words, with this unique coalition, the Pilots and Vikings are not alone as they navigate the challenges that the pandemic poses on their worlds.
“We’re all really in this together,” Leykam said. “I’ve worked in other markets where those relationships are torn or adversarial. It confirmed for me that people in the sports business in the state of Oregon take care of each other in a way that very few markets see. It’s special.
And as Cleary points out: “There is no playbook for this, whether you’re a governor, or an athletic director, or a head coach, or even an epidemiologist. We appreciate the fact that the Oregon Health Authority and the governor’s office have created an opportunity to review our protocols.”
Finding a safe path forward – where it exists during the current pandemic – is critical for these sports programs, their conferences, and the NCAA as a whole. The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament this past spring imposed a huge hit on a variety of levels, and certainly a similar loss of a 2021 March Madness if there were no seasons played would be a significant blow to not only the NCAA, but to the conferences and schools, especially the smaller ones so dependent on championship revenue to fund their sports programs.
That’s just one part of it, though. Both Leykam and Cleary know first-hand the toll the overall uncertainty has taken on the hundreds of student-athletes and staff at their respective Portland schools. It also has potential ripple effects on the retention of student-athletes and, certainly, recruiting.
They’re not alone in these concerns by any means either, but keeping up morale, and communicating with student-athletes and their families, the coaches and staffs has been a critical challenge to overcome during the past 8-9 months.
“For us, that morale piece has been the hardest thing,” said Cleary. “What drives us is being around each other, that constant rhythm that we have of hosting games and traveling and everything that comes in between, and we’ve all been at home now for eight months. That’s been the most challenging piece: How do you keep that spirit going, keep your department including your student-athletes, your coaches, your staff, connected, when you are not completely operating any way shape or form as usual?”
All the more reason they are looking forward to starting the upcoming season, despite its unusual and likely unpredictable nature.
“The thing that hurts the most is knowing that we have 275 student-athletes here, most of whom their dream and why they competed in youth sports, club sports and high school sports was to play their passion in college,” Leykam said. “And to see now that we’ve had a spring season cut short, and fall season postponed and maybe cancelled, and a winter season up for grabs, that makes me sad, knowing that those kids are losing that window in prime time, where they just want to do what they love and compete.”
But make no mistake, the health and safety of the student-athletes, coaches and staff are the top priority for both schools. The math is boggling when you consider the number of COVID tests involved, and the level of safety that needs to be achieved to ensure that safety, between the guidelines set by the state’s health authority, the Center for Disease Control, the NCAA, the respective conferences and the institutions themselves.
Both schools have taken a decidedly slow, steady and cautious approach to reintegrating their student-athletes back into their sports programs, only taking the next step when they were ready, and when it was safe to do so. It’s clichéd by this point, but truly these calculated advancements are coming with an abundance of caution.
“My job as the athletic director is not only to make sure that we put protocols in place that help to mitigate any sort of risk, but still allow our student-athletes and our staff the ability to compete and do their job,” Cleary said. “All of that aside, health and safety is the No. 1 priority, so I will never make a decision to push for something that is deemed unsafe or way too risky. I will always err on that side of caution, while continuing to advocate for our programs.”
It’s a balancing act for certain. But an important one on a number of levels, despite that sense of uncertainty that has become our norm as things seemingly change in our world on a daily basis.
Barring any curveballs – to borrow from another sport – the PSU men’s basketball program begins its season Nov. 25 against Washington, while the scheduled opener for the women’s team will likely be Nov. 30, pending finalization. The UP women are slated to open their season against Seattle on Nov. 25, with the men slotted to take on Idaho on Nov. 27.
But again, patience and flexibility…
“We’re fully prepared and doing everything we can to be ready for the 25th,” said Leykam. “And if something happens otherwise, we’ll be ready.”