Training for the Unknown | By: Donminic Goosby

Written By: Donminic Goosby | Photos By: Joshua Sifuentes | Designed By: Warner Pool

One of the biggest questions being asked this fall around Grand View University’s campus is if the GV football team will have a season. Other college football conferences such as the Big Ten (and then not the Big Ten) and the Pac-12 have already canceled and decided that they won’t play this year. Many other teams and conferences have decided the same fate this year. This leads people to believe that GV may not play a more than a game or two. Are the football players practicing for a season that will not happen?

“It’s a little weird because at any moment they can just cancel the season,” said Nick Trotter, a GV sophomore offensive lineman. “At the end of the day, I keep pressing like the season will happen because you don’t want to not be ready in case the season is going to happen. I just try and treat it like a normal season, giving it my all and trying to keep that topic out of my thoughts.”

Freshmen on the team are also feeling the effects of COVID-19 jeopardizing the season, although perhaps on a lesser scale than the upperclassmen.

“I mean if the season might not happen, I feel it won’t affect me as much,” said Ben Welch, a GV freshmen linebacker. “I just see it as a way to prepare myself for next season. This is only my freshmen year, so I’m going to not try to dwell on this season because, like I said, this season is for me to get bigger and learn from the players ahead of me. But it would be nice to have a season.”

At any time on the field, there’s a chance that the players could contract COVID-19, and the players who live out of state have to worry about bringing the virus back home with them. “The way we practice is different because we used to practice as one; now we practice as two teams so it’s just different (for) me,” said Kevin Ansah, a GV red-shirt sophomore, wide receiver. “To be honest we just have to tough

through it and keep moving, but I still keep the fact that COVID-19 is still a thing in the back of my head.”

Even with the realities of the pandemic, the players continue working together.

“For me I don’t think about it too much because you’re going to be coming into close contact with these guys, so it’s bound to happen,” said Welch when asked about the possibility of contracting COVID-19 at practice. “There’s only so much you can do from trying to not catch it at practice so it’s just one of those things that if it happens it happens, just keep moving forward.”

So far, one of the scheduled games has been postponed and the other game against Central Methodist was canceled. The GV football team has been practicing and hitting each other since spring without a game or scrimmage against another team. “It was disappointing,” said Joe Woodley, GV’s football head coach on the most recent cancellation. “I keep telling the team that it’s probably not going to be the last one that gets postponed. It was just a deal that both sides just decided it wasn’t safe.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic still happening, the team has also had to switch up the practice structure.

“It’s changed a little bit,” Woodley said. “We’re going two different practices with 90 (players) in one and 70 in the other. We have a really big squad, and we just felt that having all those people together at the same time is not ideal at this time.”

The match-up against Missouri Valley was postponed a day before the game was supposed to be played. With this game being postponed, the season seems to be slipping away from the players and the coaching staff. With the season hanging by a thread, all the team can do is take it one week at a time and see if the games will be played or postponed.