The recent outbreak of the new coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes, has been devastating to nearly everyone. It has become a global pandemic sending a massive wave of fear to nearly everyone across the planet. The times in which we live are scary and uncharted. Nobody knows what is going to happen, but I do know one thing: we are all in this together. My name is Jadyn Bellander, and I am a Jefferson High School senior. This is how COVID-19 has impacted my senior year experience and that of others.
I have played two seasons of volleyball each year and trained every offseason for the last six years to have my senior season. And I was lucky. I was lucky enough to have my last season playing a sport I love. However, right now many other student-athletes are not that lucky. Their last season of a spring sport has been ripped away from them. Their hard work for that sport will not be paid off this season as mine was.
Abbie Supalla, a senior tennis player, said: “Tennis was just the reason I woke up happy every morning, knowing that I got to go do something I loved and compete with it. Not having it for my last season is so sad and so frustrating. I had big plans for my senior season of tennis and now I don’t even get to experience it. Tennis is all that matters to me. Some people have been telling me that I’m being dramatic about all of this, but over the last four years, my love for the sport has grown immensely. I worked year-round training to be the best I could possibly be. This last winter I went to the indoor courts at least twice a week for five months. I have been looking forward to this season for so long it feels like and I had hopes of winning divisionals and winning some games at state and maybe placing. I keep hoping tennis season isn’t completely canceled, but it seems as if it is.”
