NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Like every head coach in America, Vanderbilt’s Derek Mason has had to adjust on the fly.
The global health threat brought forth by COVID-19 canceled Vandy’s spring practice and annual spring football game – small consequences in light of the current climate. Mason, his staff and his student-athletes weren’t caught off guard by the decision to put public health and safety above all else.
“Where a lot of other people were reactive in this process, I feel like we were proactive in looking at what was happening, looking at the issues that were in front of us and possibly where this thing could go and just taking the right steps,” Mason said. “Whether it was athletic administration, whether it was university administration, I think for all of us, we all understand that health, welfare and safety of our student-athletes and our student population is what we’re charged with.
“We made the right decision.”
VUCommodores.com caught up with Mason to check in on the Vanderbilt football program and how it’s progressing through an uncertain time:
VUCommodores.com: How are you and your staff and your student-athletes handling being away from one another?
Mason: “There were a lot of moving parts with this in terms of how to get our student-athletes back home. Then, how do you resource them as you’re talking about the academic piece? What does that look like?
“It’s taken every part of our football working group to make sure that we can accurately and positively be able to resource our student-athletes the right way. It has taken everything from strong academic support, to our athletic training staff having to stay on top of these men and help them rehab in different ways. We had to get really creative with athletic training and strength and conditioning to make sure that our men are being resourced the right way.
“Then there’s always the nutrition piece because everybody comes from some place different. There are some new normals being vetted for our student-athletes and a lot are having to figure out best practices in terms of time management with these men because the academic component is paramount.”
With academics of utmost importance, how are you helping your student-athletes to continue to put those academics first?
“We tried to set times and schedules for our student-athletes to manage this time, because it’s almost harder to do what they’re doing right now than it is to be in one place and having everything set on schedules where you know where to go and what you’re doing.
“A young man may be in a household where there’s enough space where he can go study, but we have several student-athletes where maybe there is no extra room or no living room. Maybe you have to stay inside or go sit in a car to study. Those are some of unintended consequences that we have to deal with, like not having WiFi access. When you start dealing with online classes, it looks totally different.
“We’re working at full capacity right now, even from home, just trying to make sure we can resource our student-athletes. And we’ve prioritized academics, and then provide our men with football-specific activities – just like we would if we were on a practice-day schedule. We practice in the morning, so we need to send something out early in the morning from a football perspective, but then give them academic time in the afternoon, and then come back and follow up in the evening.”
You have student-athletes from 24 different states and the District of Columbia. Is it logistically difficult to touch base with everyone?
“Technology is a great thing. Our ability and capacity today looks so much different than it did even a few years ago. The ability for us to be able to contact our students, get a visual if needed and necessary to make sure that they’re OK, or for us to be able to able to group message across a couple of different platforms to make sure that everybody is on the same page, and that we communicate in real time is something that I think has really helped.
“I think we’re as technologically savvy as anybody in the country in terms of the mediums that we’re using. Whether it’s Zoom, whether it’s FaceTime, whether it’s Skype, whether it’s Teamworks – we had to try to make sure though, even in this day of great technology and information, that we have a set calendar because the unintended consequence of having all this media technology is that you can send out so much information that it starts to overwhelm your men.
“We’ve had to look at a schedule and try to make sure that it sort of mirrors what makes sense for our guys. We put together a messaging calendar for our team where in the morning our men will get something from almost every coach, or one day it’s strength and conditioning in the morning, another day it may be offense, defense and special teams, and then it’s back to special teams. Then there’s a newsletter that goes out that encapsulates anything that’s important – from when classes can be dropped, to how classes are going to be looked at in terms of pass-fail, and pertinent deadlines, to what’s happening on campus. We provide updates on all issues.
“We’re trying to condense our conversations to touch points and time-sensitive information so that we don’t overwhelm them, as they’re getting a lot information coming to them at one time.”
Of course, through all of this, you have to put a tremendous amount of trust in everyone to do the right thing.
“I don’t think that as a coach – a head coach or a position coach – you can just leave it to chance. I think there’s got to be conversations with your groups or with specific men – especially with men who may find this time hard to deal with. You don’t know if you don’t ask.
“You can send out all the information you want to, but sometimes it’s about the idea of following up and having either a FaceTime call or a phone call with a young man to say, ‘How are you really doing?’ They’re going to tell you they’re doing OK because that’s the easy thing to do. But you got to dig a little deeper than that you’re servicing these young people the right way.”
At the end of the day, what’s your message to everyone in your program?
“I talk to these young men all the time about being relentless, tough and intelligent. Right now, they’re being forced to really live it. Everybody has something different that they’re dealing with. Those things are real. I think football is a part of life, but right now it’s probably not the most important piece. People are having to deal with real-life things with real-life consequences of what’s around them.
“I’m just asking these men to manage your time, be safe, and take care of your families. But making sure they understand that we will get back to where we need to be, and where we’re going at some point in time. Let’s maximize the time, maximize the opportunity and make sure that we don’t take this time for granted.”
Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com. Follow him @MrChadBishop.
