Sports
18 — Wednesday, October 14, 2020
With experience in athletics and medicine, Alex Sobczak understands both sides
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
How Paul Juda continued to perfect his craft during COVID-19
BECCA MAHON/Daily
Sophomore gymnast Paul Juda stayed locked in, finding creative ways to work out from home while he was unable to train at the gym.
ABBAS KAGAL For The Daily
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Former softball player Alex Sobczak has studied COVID-19 through her research.
NICHOLAS STOLL Daily Sports Writer
Former Michigan softball player Alex Sobczak used to devote hours upon hours every week to practice, games, conditioning and team activities. The rest of her waking hours were spent working on her Biopsychology, Cognition and Neuroscience degree to prepare her for medical school. Since graduating in 2019, Sobczak has spent the past year researching topics in medicine at the University of Michigan’s hospital system and applying to medical schools. While she hasn’t finalized her decision, Sobczak’s research has already been valuable. She studies opioids and transplants, but more recently has conducted research on COVID-19. In doing so, Sobczak has garnered a wealth of knowledge about the virus. Despite what she now knows, for Sobczak, what she still doesn’t know is her primary reason for concern. Especially as it surrounds athletics. “I think there’s just a lot of misconceptions about COVID19 right now,” Sobczak said. “As a healthy 23-year old, I get that somebody my age isn’t going to be super concerned about getting a severe case of COVID-19, but in all honesty, nobody really knows the longterm effects of it.” The mystery of the possible long-term effects, put simply, is quite worrying. And for anyone on the outside of a sport looking in, that’s why universities and conferences are so apprehensive to begin play — they don’t know what could happen to these players in the future after contracting the virus. Not only are they young, as Sobczak mentioned, but college athletes are in fantastic shape. The likelihood of an athlete having a severe case that lands them hospitalized is minimal, but the possible underlying after-effects, such as myocarditis and other unknowns, are concerning. In order to play, these risks must be minimized as much as possible. The decision to be made is how strict these restrictions and precautions need to be. “I think you’re going to have to sacrifice on both ends,” Sobczak said. “ … You
don’t want to put players’ health at risk. Especially not knowing the long term effects of COVID-19 and how it affects the organs. I would be concerned playing right now personally. I think it’s so hard to keep a bubble right now, especially on a college campus, and I guess it’s really up to weighing the sacrifices on both ends and what that looks like.” With the near-impossible implementation of a bubble on a college campus, the preventative measures fall squarely on three things: masks, testing and staying within the team’s rudimentary bubble. And with cases on the rise as football, fall and winter sports start dates approach, those two elements become even more important. Still, Sobczak understands the desire for athletes to play. She herself was a player, and she knows plenty of athletes on the softball team and elsewhere. Athletics is their escape. It is their way to cope with the stress, fear and anxiety surrounding the pandemic. For many, it is a huge part of their life and of who they are. For some, it might even be their profession, such as Sobczak’s fiancé, Nick Plummer, an outfielder in the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league system. “Being engaged to somebody who’s in baseball right now, I think it’s really hard to see that he can’t play his sport,” Sobczak said. “It’s devastating when you work your whole life for something and you don’t know when you’re going to get back to it and it’s an outlet for you. I think that’s been hard. It’s weighed on a lot of us. It weighed on me.” Despite the difficulty, Sobczak is glad her fiancé is not playing. The health risks, to her, justify personal decisions not to play when protocol isn’t air tight, such as in the MLB and affiliate leagues as well as college campuses where a bubble is unlikely and the virus can spread rapidly. In her eyes, to proceed, not only do you need multiple levels of precaution, but you need to be aware of the consequences. “As much as you love sports,” Sobczak said, “you have to watch out for people’s health and be concerned about the aftermath for something like this.”
As much as you love sports, you have to watch out for people’s health and be concerned about the aftermath for something like this.
With gyms closed and no end to quarantine in sight, Paul Juda initially found it challenging to motivate himself. Juda, a sophomore standout and reigning Big Ten Freshman of The Year on the Michigan men’s gymnastics team, decided to use the unexpected shut-down to take time off from his intense training regimen. “Athletes are humans too, at least I am,” Juda said. “I let my body take a little bit of a break. You never know how stressed out you are until you take a break.” But the time off, his first in a long while, gave Juda a new perspective on the sport he loves and trains for every single day. “Staying at home for the first time without gymnastics for an extended period of time, and getting back in the gym that first day,” Juda said, “that makes you really remember why you fell in love with the sport to begin with.” Juda conditioned throughout the quarantine
through home workouts hosted over Zoom, but his first time back in the gym and being able to perform even basic gymnastics sets inspired him to take advantage of the break. “I did a lot of cardio on my stationary bike at home,” Juda said. “Every hour that I spent on there sweating it out, I thought about how much closer I would be than the next guy who’s doing nothing during this break. “That kind of pushed me the most, the thought that these hours that you don’t get back, I’m using them to get over the edge.” That mentality is what propelled Juda even before coming to Michigan when he was competing against international gymnasts and placing in the top three against Olympians at the United States Senior Championship in 2019. Still, the transition to Michigan and a Division I program wasn’t as easy as it would seem, even for someone as talented as Juda. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows,” Juda said. “Adjusting to the academics and the amount of work it takes to compete at this level
was tougher than I expected. I got homesick for sure, even though my parents were close by.” But by his second semester, Juda set a goal to become a leader for the team in all aspects, even on a team primarily composed of upperclassmen. He pushed for an environment that only accepts excellence, which carries into the team’s dynamic this year and going forward. “All that really changed for me this year is my class rank,” Juda said. “I’m still trying to achieve the same goals I set since I got here. It’s demanding excellence and being your best.” The team has also changed with a lot of fresh faces, giving Juda a new perspective on the upcoming season. “Having a younger team is really good for me because I like the idea of showing people the steps they should follow and guiding them towards using intelligent moves in the gym,” Juda said. “I can sense the hunger from the guys without having to motivate them too much.” He and the team continue
to have high expectations for their future and aim to bring Michigan the NCAA Championship that the team worked tirelessly for during last year before their season was canceled. Amid adjusting to U-M academics, with his mentality pushing him, Juda was also selected for the United States Men’s Senior National Team in February, becoming its youngest member at just 19 years old. The day after, Juda was selected for the Pan American Games, one of the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics qualifier events for the U.S. But yet again, Juda looks at this temporary pause as a building block to his eventual goal. “If anything, this postponement of the Olympics is only advantageous to someone in my particular situation,” he said. “It’s a whole year of development for me, and I focus on training through efficiency and not wasting the time I have. What’s most important for me going forward is my body, mind, and nutrition while being happy and staying close with my teammates.”
Charlie Green changed Michigan golf, and his memory remains FILE PHOTO/Daily
CHRISTIAN JULIANO For The Daily
This past August, the Michigan golf teams and Ann Arbor community lost a key member in Charlie Green, who passed away at age 84. For the typical Michigan fan, Charlie’s would not exactly be considered a household name. But, to many entrenched in the golf lore here at Michigan, Charlie Green was synonymous with the program. Charlie served as clubhouse manager for the U-M Golf Course for 52 years. His role in this position was not only crucial to the course’s operation, but also to the golf teams as a whole. “Being there so much, he obviously knew all of the golf coaches and the teams in particular,” Charlie’s son, Sean Green said. “As they were going off on golf trips, he would be there, pretty often to send them off on the bus. He always took an active interest in all the players and the team.” Seeing as his career lasted five decades, Charlie took pride in the seemingly more mundane parts of his work as clubhouse manager; he helped organize club outings, oversaw day to day operations, managed staff and worked hands on to set up for important course events. But beyond this, Charlie was as close as one could get to an honorary member of the Wolverines’ golf programs. “Charlie’s office was the first
thing that any guest or staff member saw when they came into the clubhouse,” former Michigan coach Chris Whitten said. “Charlie was really my introduction to the athletic department, to golf at Michigan in general, and really the history of the athletic department and the people who had been a part of it.” In addition to serving the golf course in any way possible, Charlie continued to be a beacon of warm nature and created a welcoming atmosphere for golfers. Many have said that Charlie made everyone on the team feel more at home, and made the university a little bit smaller. “(Charlie) represented a connection to (the players), and he is one of the people that created a new home away from home for these young kids coming to a big University for the first time,” Whitten said. “He was kind of like the father, or grandfather figure for a lot of those kids.” Charlie was not your typical clubhouse manager. Often, he made it a part of his job to take interest in the lives of players. Unlike many coaches they may have encountered, Charlie more than anything else was particularly interested in what Whitten referred to as “non-golf things.” These often included how players’ families were doing, how school was going and what they were interested in off the course. Having a person like Charlie ask about these
things every day helped make the clubhouse feel like a second home. “The coaches see the kids every day … we skip some of the personal stuff, just ‘How are you doing?’ ” Whitten said. “The fact that they had to walk past Charlie’s door before they got to the coaches, he got to ask them how they were as people.” Today, a lasting memory of Charlie persists in the form of a plaque at the tee of the sixth hole, commemorating his career. The hole serendipitously named for Charlie was his favorite. It was endowed in his name by university donor John Buck in 2001, and it is often described as one of the most memorable and masterful holes at the course. “(Buck) wanted to make a gift to the university,” Sean Green said. “But, the first thing he thought of was my dad. He wanted my dad recognized for all of the hours and effort he put in at the course, and with athletics in general.” Sean recounted that the hole’s endowment “brought tears” to Charlie’s eyes. It was a profound commemoration of a truly profound career and man. The hole itself could certainly be described as the most memorable on the course. Whitten described it in detail: “The hole is really unique. The design of the green, the length of the hole, the strategy options, it definitely is the hole that people remember when they think of the course.” Although arguably the most
significant hole at the course was named after him, Charlie never let it affect his work. “While he was deeply thankful for it, he treated everyone the same still and was always willing to help and be hands on,” Sean Green said. Charlie also was a major proponent of women’s sports at Michigan. He was incredibly passionate about the promotion of the women’s golf team in its inception. “He really thought it was extremely important for women to have the opportunity to play. … It was really about equality,” women’s golf coach Jan Dowling said. Charlie was always incredibly interested in making the course more playable and providing opportunities for all people to play and participate. Dowling said Charlie wanted to “grow the game” and make the course more accessible. Dowling recounted a story about the “women’s” tees at the course. “They’re not the ‘women’s tees,’ he calls them the maize tees,” Dowling said. “Guys can play it, girls can play it, it was really all about equality.” To commemorate his passion for women’s sports, the women’s golf league at the course has a tournament named in his honor. Charlie’s presence in the clubhouse was an important one. He played a vital role for so many members of the golf teams, and his story and contributions will be commemorated by coursegoers for years to come.
