Last Monday, a familiar sight returned to Francis Field. Football players—Bears who have remained in hibernation since the cancellation of their season back in July—began to work out at their home field again.

“It’s all socially distanced kind of workouts on the field,” said senior defensive lineman Peter Pigatti. “Running and lifting like small weights, just what we can bring outside. I believe next week, if it all continues to go well, we’re going to be putting the pads on.”

The football team, along with the remaining fall sports, were able to resume practice last week. Since football is a sport centered around physical contact, their early practices have focused on preparing their bodies for the remainder of the fall and—hopefully—a spring season. 

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Then-junior defensive back Andrew Whitaker scans the field before a snap against North Central College last fall. The Bears have started practicing with the hope of playing games in the spring, but practices have focused on staying in shape rather than football-specific drills.

“We were told pretty early on when the season was canceled that the goal would be to have some sort of games in the spring,” senior defensive back Will Hurley said. “And so that was kind of the outlook that we had regardless of whether it would happen or not.”

Before practices resumed, players maintained disciplined workout schedules so that they would be ready for the return of practices. According to Pigatti, running, lifting and following the training regimens put forward by head sports performance coach Terry O’Neill has been a huge part of maintaining his preparedness for the season.

“He still kept sending us programs,” Pigatti said. “Everybody encouraged each other to keep working hard and all that. As athletes, it’s not really part of your mindset to give up.”

Due to social distancing guidelines, the football team has not been able to practice as a full unit and they haven’t been able to practice in full equipment. But they have remained devoted to keeping prepared for a season that may never come.

“We have two groups: one in [the] morning, one in the afternoon,” Hurley said. “[We’re] basically trying to ready our bodies for our next phase, which hopefully results in us actually practicing with each other. I don’t really know what that’s gonna look like, but so far it hasn’t really been positionally focused or any real football scheme type practice.”

Fall of 2020 was going to be a different year for Wash. U. football. For the first time in over 30 years, they were going to start a season without head coach Larry Kindbom at their helm. 

“We hired a new head coach, going into the spring, in which our spring practices were going to be kind of the first time we were able to meet and interact with our new head coach [Aaron Keen],” senior defensive back JT Streepy said, adding “And, obviously, that was not able to happen.”

In addition to the coaching change, a number of leaders on the team from last year graduated. Quarterback Johnny Davidson graduated in the spring, alongside key offensive contributors John Fisher, Mitchel Groen, Tim Mattheissen and Nick Watts. For a team in the midst of regime change, the pandemic could have been devastating. But they have maintained cohesiveness by diligently working.

To Streepy, the lack of a preseason to integrate new members of the team was a challenge, but he believes that the team has worked to overcome that unexpected hurdle. 

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The Bears celebrate during a 35-10 win against North Park University last October.

“It kind of changed the dynamic a little bit, but I think the coaching staff in general, as far as the fall sports [are concerned], has done a good job throughout the summer of staying in touch, holding team meetings and having player meetings where we’ve gotten to know the new players on the team,” Streepy said. “I think preseason is the biggest thing that is different from this year versus the years before.”

Hurley concurred with Streepy. “We didn’t have that preseason and made things a little bit more difficult,” he said. “But there are some people on our team that organized some bonding events, social distancing enforced. We’d be in Forest Park. We do random things like throwing the football around. All very spaced out and stuff because of COVID and everything. But just to try to get to know them, you know, in any way we can.”

Whether efforts to integrate the freshman are successful can likely only be judged in the spring or next fall, when Wash. U. football trots out on the field for their first game in what will then be over a year. But now, the Bears are just jazzed to be playing—or at least almost playing—again.

“There’s a lot of excitement to get back out there,” Streepy said. “For the seniors and juniors who know our way around the place, it’s good to finally be able to meet these freshmen in person and kind of gauge what the team is going to be like and I think that has been very optimistic, and it has been very positive for both the coaches and the players.”

For seniors like Hurley, they are clinging to the hope that the opportunity to play again comes sooner rather than later.

“As a high school football player. I knew that going into the [last high school] game, ‘This is going to be my last game,’” Hurley said. “Last year, there’s no way in hell I ever thought that would be my last game. It’d be really nice to have the opportunity to go into the season and know these are the last games. Just to have the opportunity to suit up again with my best friends.”