By Gabrielle Fonseca as told to Ed Bailey
NOTE: Over the next few weeks, PVPanthers.com will share stories of our student-athletes whose seasons and lives were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic afflicting the world. These first-hand accounts will allow a deeper insight into how our student-athletes have responded in the face of adversity and how they will persevere going forward. Our next story comes from senior softball standout Gabrielle Fonseca, whose Lady Panthers were on the cusp of opening conference play when spring sports were turned upside down.
I’ve always believed in never taking any game or day for granted. Live everyday as if it’s your last, play every game and practice every practice like it’s your last. And that has literally what I have had to live by these past few months.
We were scheduled to play Mississippi Valley the weekend of March 13, but due to the weather it ended up getting postponed. So, Coach (Vernon) Bland let us go home for the rest of the week because I believe that weekend would have led into our spring break.
The following week is when they cancelled our entire season, right when it was really just getting started. Personally, I was having a pretty good season so far.
I just wish we had the chance to play at least one home game, unfortunately, things didn’t happen that way.
Honestly, I really didn’t think that the entire season would be cancelled, I didn’t think it would last this long and some schools would go to the extent of cancelling face-to-face classes in the fall. I felt as though were making decisions based off of a week-by-week basis, but I also didn’t think that it would take this long for people to understand the importance of staying home and under quarantine.
After we got the news, my first thought was, “They’re going to give us another year of eligibility. They have to.”
I think that’s why our seniors took it well. We are very close, so we all stayed in touch most of the time. We all just knew we would get another year. I don’t know why we thought this and believed it fully, but we did.
I knew that NCAA wasn’t going us to leave us out to dry. I knew they would come to a conclusion of giving the seniors another year, and it was just a matter of waiting on the confirmation from NCAA to grant the extra year. That kind of helped me cope with the process.
Admittedly, I think some concerns we had were the freshmen already coming in and if the athletic department would have any money for us to come back. That is the main focus right now, making sure we have money to come back and attend PVAMU for my master’s in business administration.
For now though, it’s just been about getting used to the new normal and that’s been okay. At first, I tried keeping a schedule, I would wake up and wash up, make breakfast, get some kind of activity in… then shower, eat some lunch, maybe watch some Netflix, do some homework, read some scriptures and then repeat all over again.
After a while though, it’s been difficult to keep that schedule as I just feel myself get lazier and lazier. On the brighter side, I get to connect more with God on a daily basis.
This has given me time to reflect and realize that He is the center of everything and will help us through these tough times. We just have to continue to have faith.
The days aren’t without challenges, though.
It’s been very tough not being around people in general. I am very social, and for that to be cut off completely has affected my mental health a little bit. I have found outlets to help me work through it, but sometimes it gets very difficult being in a house for long periods of time.
So, I have made sure I get at least a 30-minute workout in, just to get out of the house and stay active. I have been hanging out with my family and utilizing FaceTime to the fullest. I’ll call my friends and just try and see if they’re doing okay, making sure they are staying active and staying busy as much as they can. I finished up my schoolwork around the first week in May, and school helped me stay busy, stay learning, and perhaps most importantly, took some more time out of my day to focus on something other than COVID-19.
But there were two parts that were honestly the hardest parts about all this.
First was the weekend of our virtual commencement. I am a first-generation student athlete, and after these past four years I just wanted my family to see me graduate and walk the stage with the rest of my friends and classmates. I remember crying that day because so much has been affected by COVID-19. Though I have been fine with most of it, it took away something that I worked hard for.
The other? Seeing notifications pop up on my phone for the games we had scheduled. It just had me thinking, “What if we were playing right now? I wonder how we would be doing right now, what our record would be…”
