Vaibhav Sharma, Staff Photographer

When the Ivy League announced in July 2020 that there would be no athletic competition during the fall 2020 season, Yale coaches and student-athletes began to look ahead to find ways to continue to improve their craft amidst this “new normal.”

A November 2020 announcement canceled winter sports, and a February announcement ruled out official league competition among Ancient Eight members during the spring season. While the Bulldogs did not compete during the 2020-21 school year, teams were allowed to hold training sessions throughout the past year as long as they were in accordance with campus and state health and safety protocols. 

For the Bulldog’s football team, practices in the fall looked much different compared to a typical in-season session, as indoor gatherings were limited to a maximum of ten people. However, through these socially distanced practices, the team was still able to get the job done, according to offensive lineman Bennie Anderson ’24, who spoke with the News in September.

“A lot of us have not played football since last fall, so while I might not be able to play in season, I still get to keep on honing my craft,” Anderson said at the time. “It’s been hammered into us that we want to take advantage of this situation. And we want to do it better than anyone else.”

Members of the Yale baseball team took a different approach to be in the best possible position upon the return of athletic competition. A contingent of 10 Bulldog baseball players enrolled remotely for the fall semester and took their classes from Florida, where they pursued high-level baseball training at the Cressey Sports Performance facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

The 10 Yale baseball players spent the fall working out six days a week — Monday through Saturday — and planned out their schedules accordingly to take classes in the mornings and work out together in the afternoon. Cressey is a preferred offseason training facility for many Major League Baseball players, and the Blue and White group told the News they often see New York Mets starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard working out in the afternoons at the facility as well.

“Cressey is an awesome place to train and obviously in the context of the pandemic and being rightfully worried about health and safety, it’s hard to get people to Yale and get a consistent schedule for training,” first-year pitcher Bryant Reese ’24 said in an interview with the News in November. “But down here in Cressey, where we’re all living and quarantining together, Cressey happens to be open for athletes and it’s easier and safer to train on a consistent schedule.”

For the women’s hockey team, head coach Mark Bolding explained to the News in March that because much of the team is not on campus — only three team members were enrolled and on campus for the spring semester — the focus has been on providing individual attention to the players in small group training sessions. 

Bolding mentioned that for student-athletes living away from campus this year, access to ice rinks and weight rooms has been especially difficult during the pandemic. An example of one of the many creative ways in which Bulldogs have continued to train this year, women’s hockey player MeiLan Haberl ’24 told the News in March that when practicing on the ice was not possible, she took to the street with her brother and played a lot of roller hockey instead.

While training has taken many different forms throughout the course of this year without sports, the mentality has stayed the same. With loosened restrictions during the spring semester, the Bulldog football team has notched up the intensity in preparation for next fall. The mental approach for head coach Tony Reno and his team has been the same this spring as it has been throughout Reno’s tenure with the Blue and White: “Be better than we were the day before.”

Earlier this month, the Ivy League announced plans to return to regular athletic competition across all sports in the fall 2021 season. 

JAMES RICHARDSON
James Richardson is a former staff reporter. He previously covered athletic administration, men's basketball and squash.