This story initially appeared on Behind the Whistle, the official blog of the IWLCA, and is being republished with permission from the organization. John Sung is the head coach of Virginia Tech.
2020 has been one heck of a ride so far. As 2019 was ending and the sports world looked back and reflected on a great decade in sports, January 2020 started with all the promise that this decade was bound to be even better. Let’s face it, based on 2020 thus far, I have learned to expect the unexpected.
Starting March 13, all NCAA sports were shut down, and then began the journey of going down the rabbit hole — from the uncertainty of if we would finish the season, if we would have a summer recruiting circuit, to eventually, would fall ball occur? Now the recruiting period has moved into a Game of Thrones “Winter is Coming” moment (yes, the dead period will continue until December 31). Now the question became, “What’s next?”
Well for me what came next was pretty easy. FIND TOILET PAPER!
Once I figured out Target’s delivery schedule, I was a hero at home. Next, I had to figure out how to exercise my competitive juices. Thankfully, the state of Virginia decided not to shut down golf courses. So in between team Zoom calls, staff meetings, and IWLCA committee Zoom meetings, golf filled the competitive juices. While spending the 139 days out of the office, I think I played 130 of the 139 days.
As spring quickly turned to summer, I decided that it was best that my staff had the opportunity to work remotely from Blacksburg and spend time with their families. Every Monday, we would have weekly Zoom meetings lasting 3-4 hours and have bi-weekly positional check-ins throughout the summer with the team. It is funny, usually once the season is over, we typically check on our players occasionally during the summer. But this summer we were able to continue to work on our skills, watch film together and keep some type of normalcy throughout this pandemic.
One of the biggest challenge points this summer to my staff and my team was to make sure that whenever we came out of isolation, we all needed to have learned something new. Just be better than you were in March. It could be that you finally learned how to cook, take on building furniture, or try to become a scratch golfer (still a work in progress).
Just be better.
As our country is struggling through the pandemic and all the social injustice, we were having Zoom calls with our team, and they said, “Coach, we need to be better.”
In 2018, Virginia Tech was on track to make the NCAA tournament for the first time in program history. After a road game in March celebrating a win, our team posted a video of them singing a song with the N-word. If you have never watched a video go viral, I can tell you firsthand that ONE post can turn to 20,000 views in seconds. After the video, we spent lots of time picking up the pieces. From meeting with the NAACP on campus, to having speakers for our team, we learned how social inequalities and injustice are present in society, which prompted needed change.
The team decided that we needed to use our social media platform to be better, so we created Movement Mondays. Instead of having our kids take over our Instagram account and post stories showing how many times they go to Starbucks or eat avocado toast, we decided to give them a voice to talk about things, educate themselves and give back. Our team decided that they wanted to challenge other NCAA lacrosse programs to give their athletes a platform to have a voice. A few Mondays ago, our counterparts in the ACC, Duke, stepped up and joined in, giving their athletes a voice and thus adding Movement Mondays as a part of their program!
Our Movement Mondays have spoken about many topics from race in our sport, voting, body image, coming back from injury and other topics. Our team wants to learn and give back to the community. My hope is that we all can be better. Figure out something that you want to accomplish and strive for it.
Join Movement Monday or do something to be better than you were yesterday.