“The worry of, ‘Is someone going to test positive right before a game?'”

Lauren Spaulding is a senior on the women’s volleyball team whose defensive skills have helped take the Panthers to a 15-6 record so far this year.

Jack Fitzgerald: Can you go over some of the day-to-day changes from before Covid to last year?

Lauren Spaulding: It was a lot more carefree, going into practice and less stress going into game weekend. Two years ago, now going into the pandemic, it was just kind of more stress on the coaches and players having to get tested all the time. The worry of, is someone going to test positive right before a game? Having to have different lineups just in case that does happen.

Also, the team rules. Not being able to go out and do whatever you want so that kind of was a huge change and then eventually we kind of all adapted to it, but yeah.

So, I remember a rumor going around at least our team that you guys had team rules that that was covid based that you all had to sign on top of the Panther Pledge that all the athletes signed. 

I would say it was really enforced at first because it was kind of all new to us and we were like, OK, we’re going to do it for the team. We all got together as a leadership group and kind of made those rules and then after a couple months it was kind of to this point where people didn’t want to do that anymore. So, then you have that issue but people who felt like they didn’t have a social life and they are missing out on that part. People were just in their houses too much, so I think those rules kind of mentally changed a little bit, but at first it was more so we wanted to that have the goal of winning the championship and we didn’t want those positive tests right before a huge game.

Since you guys were indoor, I know you couldn’t have spectators here. Were there spectators at some of the away games?

There were no spectators at all Horizon League games. If we would have played in the fall, we had a pretty great preseason schedule with playing some really big schools. And then when it got move to the spring, we were just stuck to only, Horizon League So we didn’t play two teams last year, but we played every other team twice in one weekend. There were a couple teams that tested positive right before a game, so we didn’t play them at all and that was just a no contest, so it wasn’t it wasn’t a forfeit, they just got no win or loss so that kind of hurt us.

Can you explain what it means? Just kind of to you or to the team as a whole to build play in front of friends and family and spectators again?

I mean especially it being my senior season. I’m the last one in my family to play sports. Just having my parents there every single game. My dad and mom had both just drove to every single game so far and they said they’re not missing a single game. So just that aspect and after the game being able to go up and talk to them and. I guess having your friends there too, it’s just more. It’s honestly more fun to just play in front of a crowd and have that energy. It’s definitely a different feeling. Last year it was more like practice, and you’d just go in. I know for me I wasn’t really that scared of making errors and I kind of was just playing. And this year also has been a transition in that way because you are in front of fans, so you feel like there’s more pressure from that aspect, but it’s definitely more energy, more fun and you feel like you’re playing for a purpose.

Do you think for you or your team there was a shift in mental health?

I mean, definitely me personally. I mean everyone knows this, but I had to take a month off of volleyball just because I didn’t know how to deal with it. and I know that other girls on our team were completely the same way. I think like towards the end of the season we were all burned out from all the COVID rules. All the testing all this stress about honestly just COVID in the season and then this year coming into it we’re all just so much more determined because things were more normal, and we were able to go out and be with each other on the weekends and go grocery shopping normally. And that kind of stuff and it kind of relieved all of that stress.

I definitely think a lot of people are still working at getting their mental health back up to where it was, because that was such a long year and half. But this year, having those fans having even just not having to wear masks when playing has definitely helped.