Annie Behm

COVID-19 has affected many aspects of life for everyone, and although there are several much bigger implications of a pandemic, one personal to myself and other students athletes is the uncertainty surrounding sports seasons. This year I was given the honor to be a captain for the East girls swim team, and it is also my fourth and final year with the team. Last year, we were fortunate enough to wrap up the season about two weeks before everything was put on pause to address the health crisis, but unfortunately we are not as lucky this time around. Swim season has been drastically reduced to less than a two month season with no state championship tournament or individual state meet. These changes present an obvious roadblock, but I think the most disappointing aspect of the situation is missing out on the little get-togethers and team aspects of the sport. Swimming is traditionally a very individual sport, but high school swimming presents a great opportunity to compete for something larger than yourself, as well as gain new friendships. Because of the pandemic, we are not able to have any pasta parties before our limited number of meets. This is especially important to our team because we do not practice together even in a normal year, so our time together will be more limited than usual. Despite this, we are still scheduled to begin our season in January, and our team is so excited to be able to compete in such uncertain times. There are so many people who have this situation much worse, and we are so fortunate to even have the opportunity to compete together.