Update from the Athletic Director (January 2021 Alumni Newsletter)
After spending the entire fall semester practicing, training, and competing in intra-squad games, our coaches and athletes are excited to begin the process of playing against outside institutions. Most of our contests will be against the institutions that make up the Mountain East Conference (MEC). The plan is for us to compete in 18 sports during the spring semester, with the only two sports we will not participate in being men’s and women’s indoor track. This means everyone will be crazy busy, but we are up to the challenge, and our student-athletes are so looking forward to finally having the chance to compete in the sports they love so much.
We have begun Athletic COVID testing for some of our teams three times per week. Most squads are still practicing with their masks to ensure that they are limiting their exposure to the virus. Our basketball teams will open up at home this Thursday, Jan. 7th, against Concord University, and then will travel to Glenville State on Sunday for their first away competition. For the first couple of weeks of the season, our basketball teams will play without any spectators in attendance to mitigate the risk of community spread of the virus. It is our hope that in time we may be able to allow some of our own students and faculty into our basketball and volleyball contests, as they are a part of our UC bubble. Additionally, we will be streaming the majority of our home events on our newly designed website, https://ucgoldeneagles.com/.
The indoor sports of basketball and volleyball will compete first in MEC and EIVA competitions, followed by men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s tennis, baseball, softball, lacrosse, and eventually, we will phase in the remainder of our teams. The majority of our fall sports will play a truncated season, including about 50% of the number of contests they usually would compete in when in-season.
The athletic department earned a 3.10 GPA for its 596 athletes for the fall semester. From my perspective, given that our students were dealing with COVID, quarantine, and isolation at times, and adapting to being masked the majority of time on-campus that overall, they performed exceptionally well in the classroom. In summary, sixteen of our twenty athletic teams finished the semester with a 3.0 GPA or higher.
I want to thank everyone for their continued support of our teams and coaching staff. Happy New Year to all of you, and we are undoubtedly blessed to finally be moving towards playing some contests and enjoying watching our teams excel on the field, track, and court.
– Dr. Bren Stevens
Vice President and Director of Athletics