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I thought to myself, "Okay, whatever, we'll only miss three – maybe four – games. No big deal. We'll be ready to get after it next weekend." We went back to the locker room, put all our equipment back in our lockers, and headed home. A few hours later, I looked on Twitter and there it was – a tweet from the NCAA that the spring championships were cancelled. I didn't know how to react. I just felt empty.
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Immediately, I got a call from my good friend and teammate, Bailey Sutton, telling me to come over to his house. We were just sitting there in silence on the couch – Bailey, Ray Zuberer III, Jack Lambert, Nick Brunson and I. We really just couldn't believe it to be honest. We were all in shock that it all ended within a couple hours after our conference opener was cancelled. We went from a weekend being cancelled to a season within hours. It was hard to process.
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None of this truly hit me until the next morning. I woke up and was in a great mood like I usually am. I truly forgot that our season was cancelled. I went about my morning as I did every morning and went to Dunkin' Donuts. I was blasting some Bad Bunny on the way there – jamming out and singing at the top of my lungs, as I always do. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I just started bawling. It all just hit me at once that our season was cancelled. However, that wasn't the hardest part to process. It wasn't that I had potentially played my last ever collegiate game on March 10, a whole three months earlier than it should have ended. What made me hurt the most was realizing that I wasn't going to be able to play with my brothers again.
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This team is something special. I'm not just talking about the talent of this group. We had one of the most talented ball clubs I've ever seen and played for. That's not what made this group special – it is the bond that we have. We are more than just teammates. We are a family. We spent countless hours a day together either at the field or off the field. We saw each other for at least four hours a day, whether we liked it or not. We all just clicked. We all knew how to have fun, how to have some good banter, be there for each other, etc.
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What's going on in the world is something crazy. This pandemic is spreading and spreading fast. This is serious and will get worse if we don't follow the guidelines correctly. We, as Americans, are all a team and must work as a team.
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Now I know that everyone is sad and hurt by their seasons being cancelled. It obviously sucks. However, as we all have learned through our career of playing sports, we must control what we can control. Clearly, we can't control the global pandemic going on. If you're a freshman, sophomore or junior – that's perfect, keep working hard for the next season. For the seniors that will be coming back next year, like me, I know that nothing will stop any single one of us. We are going to appreciate every single second that we have in our last year. See how quickly it was all taken away from us, without any warning? All this just adds fuel to the fire, and I know we will all come back stronger than ever.
My Story: Women's Basketball's Sandra Skinner (March 26)
My Story: Men's Basketball's Taveion Hollingsworth (April 1)
My Story: Baseball's Ray Zuberer III (April 8)
My Story: Women's Golf's Mary Joiner (April 15)
My Story: Softball's Morgan McElroy (April 22)
My Story: Cross Country's Dedrick Troxell (April 29)
My Story: Women's Basketball's Whitney Creech (May 6)
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