No track season leaves void, opportunity for Grizzlies

With no precipitation in the forecast and a high in the mid-50s, Saturday would be a great early-spring day to enjoy some track & field competition at Dornblaser Field in Missoula.

This weekend was slated for the season-opening meet of Montana's outdoor season.

That changed earlier this month, in a wild 24 hours that none of us have ever seen anything like.

While the coronavirus had spread throughout eastern countries in the first two months of 2020, it didn't fully hit the United States until much later. In fact, Montana didn't have its first reported case until March 13, a day after the NCAA canceled its spring championship events and the Big Sky Conference issued a postponement on all athletic activity.

The hope was that in a few weeks tension would ease up and we could all get back to our daily lives, including a promising track & field season for the Grizzlies. Instead the opposite has happened, and projections show the worst is yet to hit us. Last week, the Big Sky Conference's Presidents' Council canceled the entirety of spring competition, wiping out Montana's 2020 outdoor track & field seasons altogether.

"It was hard to hear that, because a lot of us were really excited for the upcoming season," head coach Brian Schweyen said. "It's unfortunate, but there's a not a lot anyone can do about it. We just have to move forward and understand that there are more important things to life than athletic competition, and that we can use this time to still be successful in a variety of areas."

Instead of gathering together and celebrating athletic accomplishments this weekend, Montana's student-athletes are now dispersed. A few are still in Missoula. The majority have gone back to their hometowns, where they will finish their semester with online classes.

With the inability to gather together, nearly all communication is now being conducted through an app that every student-athlete and coach has access to.

In addition to staying safe and healthy, of course, academics are the other top priority. Several Grizzlies acknowledged that online courses – which began last week and will continue through the spring semester – are much different from face-to-face interaction, and it will take an adjustment period to get used to.

"I previously had two online courses, so I was used to the concept," said sophomore sprinter Paul Johnstone. "Using Zoom (the online video software), though, was a big difference. I'm just trying to stay on track with everything like I normally would."

Not as important in the grand scope, but still essential to a high-level athlete who has trained his or her whole life to get to peak physical condition and compete at the Division-I level, is staying in athletic shape.

There are no coaches teaching you day in and day out, nor are they holding you accountable to put work in. Additionally, with the Big Sky's mandate last week to shut down all activity and facilities, it limits what the athletes are able to do. Even if an athlete were to ask a coach for help or training, the coaches are restricted from doing so. Nationally, the majority of gyms and weight-room facilities are also closed.

In some ways, though, many track athletes still have the ability to stay in shape to some degree.

"As long as you have flat ground and enough room to run you can do it," Johnstone said.

Johnstone has been able to do that on his high school track in nearby Forsyth, noting it gives him a good opportunity to train, even if it's a little different, particularly the dirt track. Assistant coach Paul Reneau has given the sprints group different workouts to conduct, which is what Johnstone and twin teammate Cade Johnstone have done.

At times, though, they've had to be a little creative.

"We don't really have a hill that we can run up like in Missoula, but there's a cemetery that has a slope," Paul Johnstone said. "For the most part, we're just trying to stay in shape, however we can."

For Carla Nicosia, a Columbia Falls native, she's found one of the rarities: a gym that hasn't completely shut down, yet. She's trying to stay in a routine at the facility, working out with her dad and trying to get as much regular work in as possible.

Even if the gym does shut down at some point, as a jumper, she figures there's plenty of ways to stay in form.

"There's always plyometric stuff you can do," Nicosia said. "Repetition, hopping, mats, jumps… movements like that are all good.

"But even then," she admitted, "it's not anything near what you'd be doing with a coach and jumping into a pit."

That's the concern for Schweyen, who noted that each athlete has different access to space and equipment. For some athletes, like the throwers, it's even harder to train on their own, because their event involves equipment and is so technical.

"Everyone's hands are tied, which really pushes back any progress that can be made," Schweyen said.

The hardest part during Schweyen's initial message to his team, though, was the uncertainty. There were plenty of questions, but very few answers.

For Montana's 25 seniors, some have competed for the final time. The NCAA is still working through the logistics of a commitment to give student-athletes – particularly the seniors – another year of eligibility, but there are still several hoops to jump through to arrive to a plan, and even then, some already have plans for the next steps of their lives.

Nicosia is in her fifth season at the University of Montana. She was expected to cap her outdoor career this spring and graduate with a degree in health and exercise science in May.

Her first thought when all of this went down was that this couldn't be it.

"At first the season got suspended," she said. "Then it got canceled. As soon as that happened I thought, 'What do I do? Can I petition? Are they going to give us another year?' It was a hard pill to swallow at first.

"I'm a pretty positive person and I'm trying to look at it that way, but it was complicated, and still is."

For now, the plan is for Nicosia to come back for a sixth year. She has exhausted her indoor eligibility and has one season left of outdoor. While competing unattached this winter, it was one of the best seasons of her career. While the results technically didn't count, she had several lifetime bests. She was competing as well as she ever had, and felt great too.

"I have so many goals remaining, it would be so disappointing if I couldn't at least set out to reach them," said Nicosia, who finished runner-up in the triple jump at the 2019 Big Sky Outdoor Championships. "Right now I'm just looking at this as another opportunity to take a whole year and train super hard so I can reach those goals."

The extra year would also give her an opportunity to start a second degree, this one in biochemistry for health professionals, which would give her some chemistry experience while applying for PA school in the fall of 2021.

Rest assured, we all miss track & field. We're all bummed about the idea that there will be no competition at Dornblaser Field this weekend, or competition at all this spring.

We also know that we can come back from this stronger. The student-athletes know this can be an opportunity – almost like a redshirt season – to get faster, stronger and more agile, and return next year better than ever, no matter how challenging that might be.

Until then, we'll reflect back on the last time we could all be together at Dornblaser Field. And what a joyous moment it was, when Johnstone and his teammates set a school record to win the 4x400-meter relay at the Big Sky Championships.

"The toughest thing is that we can't be together as a team and go out and do what we all really enjoy doing," Schweyen said. "Life is bigger than sports, and there are more important things than a competition. This is a great example of that, and we'll get through this together."

University of Montana Athletics

No track season leaves void, opportunity for Grizzlies

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