The calls kept coming, and the bus never left.
The St. Bonaventure baseball team never took its trip to Maryland-Eastern Shore last Thursday, and by the weekend, its season was over. Sports across the country came to a halt Wednesday night, March 11, into the following Thursday, including for Larry Sudbrook’s Bona baseball team.
“Like most people, it started initially as a trickle where you heard about this, and this is going on,” Sudbrook recalled of the week the Bonnies stopped playing. “The snowball, I think for everybody in sports, was started on Wednesday when the NBA cancelled. When a billion dollar industry cancels their entire season, I think that forced everybody at the NCAA level, MLB level, all levels to go — in the world we live in today — it made everybody go, ‘Hey, we don’t want to keep ours on and be the cause of some calamity,’ did the NBA overreach, did they not, no one knows, no one knew then, we may not know for months or years.”
On that fateful Thursday, when the concerns over coronavirus (COVID-19) seemed to finally become clear to the sports world, and many Americans, Sudbrook’s team was set to travel for a three-game series in Maryland.
By 12:40 p.m., Sudbrook said he got the call: ‘don’t go.’ The ripple effects soon became clear to his seniors, and several juniors with hopes of hearing their names called this summer in the MLB Draft.
“Then you’re dealing on Friday morning with your season’s been cancelled and you’ve got seniors with a blank stare on their face of what just happened, you have juniors, two of them who have follows by MLB and a third one that had just gotten off to a tremendous start and was getting some interest from MLB,” Sudbrook said. “Now all of a sudden they can’t play anymore, they can’t show why they should be able to be drafted in June. So Friday was probably the toughest day because it was out there that it was over and I think you just were dealing with the stunned factor at that point in time.”
When describing the effect of the pandemic on his program, Sudbrook made clear there are bigger concerns in the world than a baseball team, but there are clearly effects nonetheless.
“There’s just way more questions than there are answers right now and that’s the same for everybody, I’m not trying to complain about it or whine about it because there’s more serious things going on in the world right now,” Sudbrook said coming out of a Friday meeting on the next steps for cancelled NCAA spring sports. “Everybody’s health is important, but you’re asking me ‘how does it affect my team,’ these are the type of things we’re dealing with.”
Sudbrook said he expects the NCAA To announce details on its plans for the cancelled spring sports by Wednesday or Thursday this week. The NCAA already announced it would give spring athletes back their year of eligibility to return next season, but that could have several complications.
“We spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with each kid individually, the ones who stayed on campus we met with in person, the other ones that went home we had by conference call, because every kid’s situation is unique,” he said. “We have one kid who’s going to graduate in May with his Bachelor’s and his Master’s, so what can the NCAA do for him? He did that in four years. What can the NCAA do for a kid like him?
“Then we’ve got other kids that hadn’t planned on getting their Master’s but they were graduating in May, they’re good students and the Master’s was a possibility for them. And like any sports team, we have some young men who are graduating in May with their Bachelor’s but they don’t have the grades to come back to get a Master’s. So you’re dealing with a lot of different parts and moving things right now.”
On Thursday, the AP reported Major League Baseball is considering skipping its amateur draft, currently scheduled for June 10-12, to save money while games are on hold. So Bona could not only have multiple seniors returning, but also juniors who hoped to be drafted.
Sudbrook said he expected the NCAA to allow schools to give spring athletes their normal allotment of scholarships, plus more for returning seniors.
“Basically you’re going to be held to your same scholarship limit, plus your seniors, you can honor them,” he said. “But that also means St. Bonaventure has to be willing to do it. It’s one thing for the NCAA to say, ‘Hey, here’s what we think is the right thing to do.’ Well, St. Bonaventure still has to say it’s OK with us too, we’re going to give out some tuition money here that we hadn’t planned on giving out. But that part, the scholarship part, the NCAA and I think SBU will come up with an equitable answer for.”
Then, playing time would be even more competitive for the spring of 2021.
Every freshman, Sudbrook said, usually arrives expecting to play right away. So too will underclassmen who expected spots to open up next year.
“It’s easy to say, you certainly feel for the seniors, these are the people being affected most directly, immediately,” Sudbrook said. “However there is a trickle down effect where it’s going to affect everybody. Every kid, every freshman thinks he’s going to play his first year. It just got more difficult. We have junior college kids, the reason you bring a ju-co in is because you expect him to play immediately, now maybe his scenario changed a little bit too. So it’s definitely going to affect everybody on a sports team one way the other. It’s all uncharted waters for all of us.”
For now, the NCAA bars programs from traveling to scout recruits — not that games are happening — or hosting official or unofficial campus visits. So coaches can only communicate electronically, including by phone or email, with recruits.
“The other thing you’re doing is maybe you’re doing scheduling a little earlier than you normally would,” Sudbrook said. “Normally at this time of year, like right now, I should be getting to play VCU at 6 o’clock tonight. I should be in Richmond right now. So you’re going work on some scheduling things, some budget things, you’ll work on things that you may have normally done in June, you’ll try to do them now. But as far as the recruiting part, other than phone calls and emails, that’s on hold.”
MLB’s shutdown has impacted former Bona players as well, as seven of them played in the minors or other professional leagues. Aaron Phillips, Cole Peterson, Connor Grey and Steven Klimek all played AA ball last summer, and Phillips, Peterson and Grey each reached AAA for short stints.
“Like most people, they’re just trying to stay in shape and it’s extremely difficult to do because gyms are closed and you can’t even get together with several people to go out on the field so they’re doing the best that they can,” Sudbrook said. “They’re right at that part of their careers where they’re hoping to make an impact, have a great spring, really put together a great month or couple weeks and even jump up the ladder a little more. Now that’s all been put on hold.”
