Sara Abbott is an ASU student assigned to cover Brophy College Prepatory.

The pandemic pandemonium canceled the athletic seasons for Brophy College Prep student-athletes, but the connection between athletes lives on.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association (AIA) made the decision to cancel the remainder of the athletic calendar after monitoring the CDC recommendations and the stay-at-home orders put in effect for Arizona. 

“It was clear that we needed to also follow suit,” AIA Executive Board President Jeannine Brandel said. “To put people at risk just because we want to play a game doesn't make sense. We need to make sure that we're making good decisions not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.”

Brophy Athletic Director William Woods is focusing on keeping the relationships with athletes and coaches intact after the cancellations. 

“We're trying to keep a connection with our kids in this time where they are having a huge change academically and having to do distance learning,” Woods said. “We want to try and keep them together as much as we can.”

Brophy tennis coach Eric Chalmers used a video conferencing system to break the news to his three-consecutive state championship team that their season was being halted.

“That was one time where I wish I didn't have GridView, where I'm able to see all their screens at once, because it was simultaneous faces falling across the board,” Chalmers said.

Despite the cancellation of the tennis season, Chalmers is holding virtual practices three times a week for 20 minutes.  Each player can pick if they want to attend a Monday or Wednesday session, followed by a full-team practice on Thursday via video conference. The practices will remain scheduled for the rest of the school  year.

“Anything we can do to give the guys as much sense of stability and check-in with normalcy during this very abnormal time, let's do it. Whatever it takes,” Chalmers said.

Chalmers assigns games for each player to complete, a scouting report to observe strategy, requests that athletes send in examples of demonstrating techniques, and checks in with each athlete to see how they are coping.

“I made a video of me doing these drills, Chalmers said. “I've asked them over the weekend to do the drills and then send a photo of them doing it. We're gonna attempt to all do the drills together. I can imagine it being pretty funny, but we're going to attempt to all do it together.”

The Brophy tennis team  has four seniors. The cancellation of the season means the seniors are missing out on a pivotal memory for high school athletes: Senior Night.

To honor his graduating athletes, Chalmers has arranged for Senior Night  to be held during Thursday’s practice. The students will honor the seniors by sharing memories and photos of their time on the team.

“Being able to have a time where we can just all come together, at least briefly, recreates the community that we were building together,” Chalmers said. “ It gives the guys a baseline to remember there is something on the other side of this. We're all still here, and we're not going anywhere.”

The planning for next season is in full force. Woods is using the timing of the coronavirus in countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan to model his strategy for the fall. Woods remains optimistic about the future.

“I have a belief in our doctors in this country that they are going to come up with solutions, and that at some point, we'll be back to some semblance of normalcy,” Woods said.