Four fall sports to return in the spring at BC; Football among the six that won't

Feb. 26—On a day he and his team received news they'd been hoping to get for some time, Aaron Chavez wasn't ready to breath a sigh of relief.

Chavez, the interim coach of the Bakersfield College men's basketball team, oversees one of four Renegade teams who now have games to prepare for. On Friday, the school announced that fall sports men's and women's basketball, indoor volleyball and men's soccer would be able to hold abbreviated seasons in the spring.

The news wasn't so good for football, wrestling, women's soccer, women's golf and men's and women's cross country. Despite opting into the season recently, none of those teams were able to find enough opponents or meet necessary COVID-19 testing protocols to compete in the spring.

Even though his team's been holding workouts since Jan. 19, Chavez says things have hardly felt the same. And with COVID postponements and cancellations still a common thing in both the NBA and college basketball, he knows his team isn't out of the woods, despite making considerable progress in recent weeks.

"We get into basketball mode and we have somebody bugging us saying 'hey, get hand sanitizer,'" Chavez said with a chuckle. "In a lot of your day, you're walking on eggshells because we're at the mercy of COVID-19.

"We at least have something to possibly look forward to, where before we had nothing to look forward to. But it's always a minute-by-minute basis. I'd like to think we're just out of it and we're safe, but in reality we're not."

Those who are competing will have 70 percent of a normal schedule available to them, a total the California Community College Athletic Association agreed upon in July.

While all teams were open to competing, BC Athletic Director Reggie Bolton says that in many instances, there simply weren't enough available opponents to get to that 70 percent goal.

"When a lot of schools opted out, there wasn't anybody to play," Bolton said. "We didn't want to burn a season of competition with our student-athletes playing two or three games."

One thing Bolton believes will help soften the blow of a lost season is that all BC athletes, whether they have a season or not, will maintain an additional year of eligibility, a measure passed by the CCCAA in November.

With fewer spots available, many athletes have expressed fear that going a full school year without competing will limit their opportunities to extend their careers at four-year schools.

Bolton, however, thinks the time away could prove beneficial, saying he's been pleased with the academic progress many athletes have made over the past year.

"There's a lot of places to play," Bolton said. "(The time away) allowed them to focus on some things that are going to help them be more recruitable when we actually start to go back. You want to play, of course, but they had a year to develop physically, they had a year to develop emotionally and academically. They put themselves in a position to make themselves more recruitable."

For some, like football coach R. Todd Littlejohn, preparations persist, even if the wait to compete against other schools continues.

Littlejohn is still expecting to have a full spring season and is currently taking his team through conditioning drills in preparation of having 15 padded practices in March and April. He's also open to bringing in other schools for scrimmages, but added "I'm not banking on that," saying his focus is on preparing his players for the fall.

While the loss of games stings, Littlejohn didn't even get to have a spring season in his first year at BC, and with things starting to open up, he says he's pleased to have anything positive to cling to.

"The fact that we're able to do something and getting prepared from a physical standpoint, I'll take it," he said. "What little you can do, you run with."

Schedules for these sports are expected to be released next week.

Also on Friday, the Renegade baseball, softball, beach volleyball, men's golf, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's swimming and men's and women's track and field teams all opted in for an abbreviated spring season.

Bolton plans to meet with other athletic directors in the Western Sun Conference to determine which spring teams will be able to compete.