In our continuing series of interviews with Collegiate Head Coaches on the current state of the game and the effect of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic currently gripping our nation and world; We speak with University of Alabama at Birmingham Head Coach Jimmy Kolaitis.
Coach Kolaitis is in his second year at UAB after five highly successful seasons at Oregon as an assistant coach. Kolaitis has one of the up-and-coming programs in Division I and had a 15-11 record in 2020 before the cancellation of the season came.
RTS: The COVID-19 Pandemic has obviously been one of the most unique and disturbing times in our countries history. From the standpoint of Collegiate Athletics it has been unprecedented in the fact of its impact on all sports including softball. Talk a little about how it has affected your program particularly. Where were you and your team when they found out the season had been canceled? How did you break the news that the 2020 season was over to your athletes and the immediate and aftereffect of announcement since?
Kolaitis: It was definitely one of the toughest conversations with a team that I have ever had. You work hard and prepare for a season then it gets taken away from you, with at that time, so much of the unknown. I also understand that the health of the student-athletes and everyone else is extremely important as we try to figure out what is going on. We had just landed in El Paso, and was on the field warming up when I received the call from my administration to shut it down. As you can imagine they were devastated, especially the seniors. We told them to just take day by day and not look into what they were reading on social media too much. We would update them as we found out more details. Our staff let our young athletes know how proud we were of them, and how much we loved them. Softball doesn’t define them, but it is important how we deal with situations like these. We have so much to be thankful for, as college softball is not just about winning games, but how we grow as young people, and the relationships that we build over time with the people around us.
RTS: As a coach what are your opinions on how NCAA has handled the outbreak and the cancellation of the 2020 season?
Kolaitis: We are dealing with something that we have never dealt with before. Everyone is trying to figure this out the best way that they can. I probably would have liked to seen the NCAA have a little more thought process before cancelling everything. At the end of the day, it was probably the right decision, but I felt like they should have worked with the conferences a little more to figure out what was going on.
RTS: How does the cancellation affect what you will do in the future from an operational and progressive program standpoint since you are losing the season?
Kolaitis: I don’t think this changes what we do from an operational standpoint. Once we are given the green light to start playing again next year, we will prepare and work like we always have done.
RTS: With the
information at hand in which NCAA seems to be granting a year of
eligibility back to the student-athletes that lost the 2020 season; How is
this affecting your roster, recruiting, and scholarship management over
the next year?
Kolaitis: There are a lot of speculation and concerns of what this may look like. I told my team that before we start worrying about the status of future eligibility, let’s wait to see what the details are. All we know is the NCAA will grant the season back. Once we get the details we can look at how the future looks. People outside of the game thinks it is as easy as just granting them the season back, but there will be some challenges with this. However, before worry about what this will actually look like, I believe it is a good time to stay patient and wait for answers.