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Thursday, July 23, 2020

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SPORTS

As Michigan regroups for the fall, a new reality sets in

The Michigan volleyball team 

barely had barely begun its spring 
season when an ill-fated email 
landed in Mark Rosen’s inbox on the 
morning of March 12.

Mark wasn’t sure what to make of 

the note, which merely specified the 
date and time of a required call for 
all University head coaches. When 
he first read the email, it appeared 
the biggest problem would be the 
fact that the call conflicted with his 
team’s practice. 

And so, while players began 

trickling into Cliff Keen Arena for 
what they thought would be a run-
of-the-mill 
Thursday 
afternoon 

practice, Mark retreated to his office 
to join the mandatory call while 
associate head coach Leisa Rosen 
— who handles the majority of the 
team’s training anyway — began 
practice.

Little did he know, it was the last 

time he’d leave the gym with any 

sense of normalcy.

As the call began, Michigan athletic 

director Warde Manuel didn’t mince 
words. The Big Ten was suspending 
all athletic activities, prompting an 
immediate intervention from Mark.

“My team is practicing right now,” 

Mark told The Daily. “What should 
we do?”

Manuel’s response left no room for 

interpretation:

“As soon as we get off the call, shut 

it down.”

Moments later, Mark re-entered 

the gym, taking in his final glimpse of 
volleyball before the world would be 
turned on its head. The Wolverines 
were in the middle of a drill when 
Leisa made eye contact with Mark, 
whose facial expression and body 
language told her everything she 
needed to know.

The players finished the drill and 

made their way to the team room, 
where Mark delivered the news.

“I think (the players) kind of 

knew,” Mark recalled. “Since I wasn’t 
in practice, they knew that probably 

wasn’t a good sign. I just said, ‘Hey, 
this is what’s going on. This is the 
situation. We don’t really know a 
whole lot, but we’re not going to 
practice until further notice.’ ”

As players filed out, a warranted 

sentiment of uncertainty hung in the 
air. Since that moment, the Rosens 
and Wolverines have yet to reconvene 
as a team. In his 21 years at the helm of 
the Wolverines’ volleyball program, 
Mark has never lived through 
anything like the last four months.

But now, 130 days later, there’s a 

light at the end of the tunnel. And 
as Michigan inches closer to its 
conference-only season, the athletic 
department’s return-to-sport plan is 
at the forefront of it all. 

“It’s a pretty specific protocol,” 

Mark said Thursday. “I’m super 
proud of our department. We have a 
few specific people in our department 
who are in charge of a few certain 
areas like facilities or medical. I 
thought they were pretty good before 
(the pandemic), but they’re rockstars. 
They are really good at what they do. 

You see that in whatever profession — 
when the pressure’s on and it’s a dire 
situation, that’s when you see who’s 
really good.”

Mark singled out senior associate 

athletic director Darryl Conway as the 
mastermind behind Michigan’s plan 
to monitor athletes’ exposure, testing 
and resocialization process. And even 
though nothing is mandatory until 
the Wolverines’ formal report day on 
August 10, many volleyball players 
have voluntarily returned to Ann 
Arbor and committed to the athletic 
department’s guidelines.

But even with a plan in place, the 

seemingly endless list of wildcards 
remains daunting.

“That whole process is going about 

as smooth as it could, but there’ll be 
a lot of hiccups,” Mark said. “One 
of the things I’ve learned through 
this process is that you have to be 
flexible and you have to understand 
that things are going to change. 
They literally change by the minute 
almost.”

A few weeks ago, Mark lived 

through an example of just that.

“We were on a call one time with 

all our coaches and administrators,” 
Mark recalled. “They mentioned a 
date and a time at the beginning of 
the meeting, and by the middle of 
the meeting that date had changed. 
I was like, ‘Wait, what happened?’ 
They said, ‘Oh, yeah, while we’re on 
this call, things changed.’ That’s what 
we’ve got to expect. It’ll change really 
rapidly.”

For now, it’s full steam ahead. As 

of July 17, just eight of the 635 total 
student-athletes and staffers in Ann 
Arbor have tested positive for COVID-
19. Yet, even as the Wolverines move 
forward under strict guidelines and 
cautious optimism, Mark knows 
that anything is possible in this new 
reality.

“We know our plans might get 

blown up any minute,” Mark said. 
“We have to be ready for that.”

With fall sports on the horizon, doubt lingers for Mark Rosen

As the fall sports season inches 

closer, dominoes are beginning to 
fall.

All across the country last week, 

conferences canceled their fall sports 
seasons. The Ivy League was the 
first Division I conference to cancel 
fall athletics. The Patriot League, 
Atlantic 10 and Mid-Eastern Athletic 
Conference all followed suit, while 
others, like the Big Ten, announced 
the enforcement of conference-only 
fall schedules.

Within Ann Arbor’s Cliff Keen 

Arena, the Michigan volleyball team 
is keeping tabs on those dominoes. 
Though the team won’t formally 
report for its preseason until Aug. 
10, many players have already 
voluntarily made their way back to 
Ann Arbor.

And as head coach Mark Rosen 

enters his 22nd year at the helm, a 
telling realization has set in.

“Coaches 
and 
athletic 

administrators, 
we’re 
planners,” 

Rosen said Thursday in an inerview 
with The Daily. “It’s what we do. 
We plan all the time. We plan for 
matches, we plan for practices, we 

plan everything. This is such a weird 
time because you plan, but you really 
don’t know what you’re planning for. 
So, as we’re going through this and 
we’re trying to create schedules and 
plans, we’ve kind of realized that 
there’s a lot of different pathways 
this could take.

“There’s been a lot of discussion 

about 
the 
fall 
being 
canceled 

potentially. 
So 
when 
those 

conferences did it, I don’t think I 
was surprised, but it certainly makes 
you realize this whole thing could 
be tumbling down pretty quickly. 
We just have to be understanding of 
that, we just have to know that’s a 
possibility.”

With the preseason on the 

horizon, the looming uncertainty 
casts an increasingly long shadow 
with each passing day. During the 
Wolverines’ team Zoom call on 
Wednesday, that all-encompassing 
sentiment lingered throughout the 
call.

“You just sense, every time we 

talk, (the players) are positive, 
they’re 
upbeat, 
they’re 
excited, 

they’re working hard, but there’s this 
little thread of doubt or negativity of 
what could happen,” Rosen said. “I 
think they’re handling it super well, 
but it’s hard. It’s hard to have that 

doubt. Everybody really, really wants 
to have a season, but we don’t know 
what’s going to happen.”

Since Michigan’s spring season 

was abruptly cut short on March 12 
as a result of the Big Ten’s decision 
to suspend all athletic activities, the 
program has not convened in person. 
Some players left campus when the 
University transitioned to virtual 
learning, while others remained in 
Ann Arbor — despite the closure of 
team facilities.

Through it all, one of Rosen’s 

program pillars has prevailed.

“I’ve been impressed with how 

they’re focused on the things we can 
control and not focused on the things 
we can’t control,” Rosen said. “We 
talk about that in our program all the 
time even in a normal year because 
we think that’s a really healthy way 
to look at life, but I think they’ve 
really been very good about that 
because we know there are so many 
things outside our control right now.”

But they can’t control what’s going 

on in the country. As the COVID-19 
pandemic rages on, each passing day 
plays a role in determining the fate of 
fall sports. And right now, things are 
trending in the wrong direction.

According to Stadium’s Brett 

McMurphy, NCAA President Mark 

Emmert told the NCAA Council fall 
championships would “likely” be 
canceled if a decision needed to be 
made on July 16. With a final decision 
coming in the near future, that doubt 
appears warranted.

“Three weeks ago or two weeks 

ago, I would’ve been like, ‘Hey, this 
is going in a really good direction,’ ” 
Rosen said. “And now all of a sudden, 
this last week, it hasn’t been so good, 
so you just don’t know.

“… It’s interesting because it’s 

changing so often. People think one 
standard is good enough and as you 
continue through it, you’re like, ‘Hey, 
wait, we’ve got to raise that standard.’ 
So, I think everybody’s very open.”

But even as the optics change 

quickly, the bottom line remains 
intact.

“Whatever the best science tells 

us,” Rosen said, “we’re going to do 
that.”

FILE PHOTO/Daily

Mark Rosen is learning to live with the possibilities of the fall semester.

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer