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CoSIDA Executive Director Doug Vance Message Included in December Issue of NACDA's Athletics Administration Magazine
This message from long-time CoSIDA member Brent Harris (Wabash) was written for the The National Association of Division III Athletic Administrators (NADIIIAA) and was included on page 62 of the December 2020 issue of Athletics Administration Magazine, the official publication of NACDA and its affiliates. The issue highlights testing initiatives and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. CoSIDA Executive Director Doug Vance also contributed to the issue, penning the CoSIDA Corner which appears in each issue.
by Brent Harris, Wabash College Athletics and Campus Wellness Communications Director
Like other athletics administrators around the country, I wondered how the changes in scheduling for the fall would affect my day-to-day duties. Stories of other communications directors facing layoffs or furloughs, and even the dismissal of some positions in our business caused me concern.
The answer to my questions on how my time would be spent during the fall semester came on a July afternoon. Wabash President Scott Feller and Athletics Director Matt Tanney creatively decided to use my skills as a statistician in a new and unique way —- tracking COVID-19 testing data for the campus.
The Wabash administration enrolled me in a certification program as a contact tracer through Johns Hopkins University. I also began working with our athletic trainers, student health team and IT department to create a database which would record information similar to the sports data I normally collect. The preliminary data came from testing results prior to the students’ arrival to campus. As classes began I continued to collaborate with the student health team to verify whether students were showing symptoms of the virus.
My days of tracking passing yards, cross country times, and soccer goals were suddenly replaced by examining trends in symptomatic responses. When an outbreak occurred in the early portion of the semester, I spent a Saturday afternoon analyzing data from contact tracing. I exchanged emails with members of the COVID task force and compared data of contacts across all residential living units.
The process came full circle back to athletics when Wabash began its resocialization plan to start practices. I worked with coaches to verify their athletes regularly tracked symptoms using our campus app. When contact tracing showed two members of a team had close contact with a positive COVID case, our pre-practice plan was put to the test. Each coach saved a roster of small practice groups in the college’s cloud storage system, which prevented us from having to shut down an entire group. We isolated the particular individuals and reduced the risk to other members of the practice pod. The data needed to assess the situation was readily available, the coaching staff followed proper social distancing and resocialization guidelines, and the contact tracing information developed in August provided rapid connections with those involved.
President Feller raised a question during one of our phone calls in September during the first outbreak. “I bet you would much rather be tracking your regular statistics than working on the data I’m asking for?” While covering Wabash sports teams and writing about students’ accomplishments on the field and in the classroom has always provided a thrill for me, being part of a team that has kept in-person classes going throughout the fall has been one of the biggest wins of my 22-year career.