Wood says athletes remaining optimistic despite COVID-19 uncertainty

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  • Snyder sophomore Hunter Stewart worked on passing drills in his family’s front yard.
    Snyder sophomore Hunter Stewart worked on passing drills in his family’s front yard.
  • junior Jax Collier lifted using a home-made weight set. Stewart and Collier are both members of the Snyder High School football program and are doing their best to stay in shape while quarantined.
    junior Jax Collier lifted using a home-made weight set. Stewart and Collier are both members of the Snyder High School football program and are doing their best to stay in shape while quarantined.
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Just a few weeks ago, high school athletes held on to the hope that spring sports would resume next week, but those hopes were dashed when the University Interscholastic League (UIL) cancelled all remaining spring events.
Under the circumstances, it would be understandable to express disappointment, but Snyder athletic director Wes Wood remains optimistic and hopeful about the future. When the news came out that spring sports had been cancelled, Wood spoke with his athletes and tried to lift their spirits.
“This is life,” he said. “As much as it is tough to swallow, we need to stay positive and prepare for the best because that is all you can do. I told them that as much as it sucks, we kind of anticipated this and I told them that you are going to be a part of a very rare period of high school sports. They get to determine whether or not it will define them or if they will define it. It’s not the end of the world. It is a hiccup and we are going to get through it.”
As the head football coach, Wood’s message to his players was that this period will define what kind of season the Tiger program will have.
“More than ever, what you do on your own time will determine what kind of team and culture we are going to have,” he said. “This time more than ever, it is going to prove true the ‘who are you when no one is watching?’ type of deal.”
Heading into his first off-season as the head coach, Wood and his staff had developed an off-season program designed to prepare athletes for what to expect for the 2020 football season. With the cancellation of spring athletics, that program was put on hold, leaving Wood and his staff reeling.
“It’s crazy. It’s definitely a hurdle,” he said. “We had a really good thing going and I felt like the kids were really trying to buy in to what we were trying to do. We were in what we call our ‘technique’ phase. That is going to hurt us. Programs that have been established for 10 years or more aren’t going to be hurt quite as much, but we were going to use that time to re-hash, re-focus, rebuild and re-teach. But everyone is going through this so I am not worried about that. You just have to roll with the punches. You just have to take the pitch and roll with it.”
Wood’s focus has turned to the fall. While the possibility still remains that the fall football season could be affected by the pandemic, Wood remains hopeful that the season will proceed normally.
“I’m optimistic that it’ll be normal,” he said. “There are people who think that we may get back to normal real quick and there are people who think we may not have football at all. It’s weird because some experts say we can’t lift the restrictions until we have a vaccine. Other experts say we won’t have that vaccine for another 18 months. Others say we can lift things and that we beat the curve. There are a thousand different theories out there and it is hard to try to guess what is going to happen. I think we will see a quiet May, they will start to lift things in June and we will be rocking and rolling in July but it’s hard to say.”