领导危机领域

也许这是上帝安排的时间, but in many ways it didn’t feel perfect when 克里斯托·罗森塔尔02届, MCAA 07年, was named CUI interim athletic director the very month (March 2020) that the world went into Covid lockdowns. 但是罗森塔尔, a self-described “diehard 肯考迪娅 loyalist,在掌舵, the athletic department’s response and strategy helped CUI set the standard for operating sports programs safely during a season of restrictions.

“It was an all-hands-on-deck situation,罗森塔尔说 of the circumstance she encountered on her first day in a new role. “We all knew it would be challenging.” 

At that time, nobody fathomed that some schools would remain closed for the rest of the year. Losing spring sports was hard enough on athletes and coaches. 

“对我这个垒球教练来说, it was devastating to stop being together and competing,罗森塔尔说. “I felt so strongly that people need to be around something normal, doing something physical like an athlete is used to doing.” 

Other athletics directors and coaches around the country felt the same way, but it was CUI that led the way in returning to play in the fall of 2020, 安全有效, 结果就是, Rosenthal fielded calls from many athletics leaders and coaches in other states seeking her advice. 

“Our athletics team 在这里 at 肯考迪娅 takes pride in the work that went into this response, 以及我们校园的团结, how everyone came together to pull off something not many people in California have done,她说。. “Little old 肯考迪娅 Irvine did it. I think it catapults us into a new era and onto a new stage. We’re going to be a little different, cutting edge, not afraid to be the best 肯考迪娅 we can be. I tell my teams, don’t worry about what everybody else is doing — worry about what we’re doing."

等待的游戏

But in the initial stages, no sports were competing, causing real frustration among student-athletes. 

“They lost sports seasons and social lives at the most social time of their lives,罗森塔尔说. “When you lose something you love and the ability to do it — it’s real. 它是无情的和尝试的, but our student-athletes adapted well and trusted the coaching staff and the University.”

Rosenthal met twice a week with PacWest conference representatives and was in close contact with CUI's 卫生署署长, 米歇尔的laab, who worked closely with the Orange County Health Care Agency. But each time things seemed to be starting up again, new restrictions slammed the door shut, 从事副业本校. 过了一会儿, 大型学院和大学, 包括整个犯罪现场系统, announced they would remain online throughout 2020. 

That’s when CUI, under new president, Dr. 迈克尔·托马斯。他决定另辟蹊径. Listening to students and other CUI constituencies, he and the cabinet made plans to open the residence halls, 提供有限的面对面课程, 让运动员回来参加比赛, no matter what their season might look like.

“It was cool that the leadership wasn’t looking around to see what everyone else was doing,罗森塔尔说. “Dr. Thomas said, ‘Do you think we can pull this off?’我们说，‘我们认为我们可以. We think we have a pretty good plan.’ It was great to see 肯考迪娅 become the leader in trying something.” 

学生 especially expressed eagerness to return and compete in whatever way they could. 

“学生 were willing to come back to campus even though they were taking classes online in their dorms,罗森塔尔说. “他们想和队友在一起, get their bodies and minds what they needed, 精神上, 身体上和情感上, 博彩平台推荐创造了什么. … That’s what kept us hunkered down together: We all want the same thing, 所以我们静观其变, kept pulling together and moved forward as best we could. We said we’re going to do this as safely and resourcefully and competitively as we can." 

Rosenthal and her team of Glory Fung, 率先取得领先布列塔尼Pereda, 安德里亚富, and Ben Rosehart war-roomed the situation early on and began to plan what the fall might look like. 

“你 just have to figure it out,罗森塔尔说. “We got in a room with a white board and said, ‘Okay, 在这里’s what we’ll do.’”

重量的空间

One challenge was creating enough space for all teams to lift weights without crowding together. 

“We don’t have enough space in a normal year to lift, so that’s a challenge anyway,罗森塔尔说. “If we were going to come back in the fall and try to get this to happen, we had to spread out and have more equipment. It gets touched 太 many times to effectively clean. 这就是我们开始的地方.” 

I felt so strongly that people need to be around something normal, doing something physical like an athlete is used to doing.

蒂姆Odle, 副总统, 博彩平台推荐, 注册及设施服务, agreed to purchase additional weights, platforms and other equipment to expand the number of weight rooms from one to four. His team also added outdoor areas for lifting and exercise, and provided cleaning carts for every facility. 

“We had cleaning carts we called the Ghostbuster machines. 你 could clean everything quickly. It was extremely helpful,罗森塔尔说. “Our student-athletes did a good job as it became part of their routine.” 

Rosenthal’s leadership team then scheduled each sports team for each weight room at a specific time, with the help of NCAA guidelines on how to navigate risks per sport. Then the CUI athletics team created its own internal master document to map out how to return each team to campus, w在这里 and with whom student-athletes would live, and how teams would start practicing. 

“It required a tremendous amount of teamwork on campus,罗森塔尔说. “Five hundred and forty-four athletes is a lot for a university of our size. Figuring out how to serve that population, we had to be resourceful and work well as a team. We have a small but mighty group of people who pulled this off.” 

偏好于, 卫生署署长, proved a critically important resource for Rosenthal’s teams and their abundance of questions. 因为他们的计划, CUI was the only university in the PacWest conference’s SoCal area to bring student-athletes back to campus as early as it did, starting practices a full month or two before anyone else. 不仅如此, but outbreaks were limited — mostly driven by social contact outside of games and practices — and never forced teams to stop practicing. 

出于这个原因, other athletic directors and coaches nationwide — including PacWest Commissioner Bob Hogue — sought advice from Rosenthal’s team on how to create models and procedures allowing teams to return to play. 

“They were encouraged simply by the fact that we were opening and moving forward,罗森塔尔说. “They asked us a lot of questions about how were we doing testing? How were we getting back to practice? 我们的程序是怎样的?” 

She freely shared the internal document they had created with athletics directors in NCAA Divisions I and II across the country. The document highlighted points of concern and how to resolve those, 规划如何重返赛场. 

“Across the board, athletics directors and coaches leaned on each other,罗森塔尔说. “Normally, you don’t want to ask a competitor for help, but it was all hands on deck. 你 can’t compete without other people.” Still, with teams coming back, it wasn’t clear the Eagles would even have anybody to play. 

“Nobody knew what was coming,罗森塔尔说. “我们没有时间表. A large public school conference in California had announced they weren’t participating in the fall. Now we were scrambling because we needed enough games to get a minimal schedule.” 学生, 太, needed extra time to get back into game-day shape. 

“Many of our student-athletes didn’t have access to a gym and hadn’t been doing any training,罗森塔尔说. “We started with very low-risk stuff, introduced exercises little by little. We had a percentage-based model of how much you can lift.”

一个领域的知识 

Rosenthal had played softball for the Eagles — catcher and third base positions — and served in a variety of roles on campus: assistant coach, 校内体育主任, 健身中心接待员, 学术顾问, head softball coach and now athletics director. But it was her strategic thinking that added value now. 

“I was a minimally-talented athlete, but what made me good was that I was knowledgeable of the field and unders太d my teammates and their motivations,她说。. “Those were my natural gifts — seeing a bigger picture and figuring out what my role needed to be to help the team win.” 

整个夏天, the administration dropped the “interim” from Rosenthal’s title and gave her a clear path to lead the program into the future. “I love this place and believe God does amazing things 在这里,她说。. “I marvel at the opportunities I’ve had 在这里. 你 have to love what you do to try to pull off what we did.”

法庭上的启示

When restrictions were finally lifted enough so that the Eagles men’s basketball team could travel to Pepperdine to play their first game, “It was like watching a miracle on the court,罗森塔尔说. “我甚至不在乎我们做得怎么样. This year is not even about the competition. It’s been great to see our athletes in person, 穿过健身房, 正轨, 在校园里看到老鹰队的球衣. Winning has been secondary — though I will not be saying that when softball seasons starts. I had wondered if sports would ever come back, or was this over?” 

She says her team is indebted to Dr. Thomas and the University leadership for the faith they placed in the athletics staff. “Dr. Thomas trusts people w在这里 he has them, and that’s so vital,她说。. “Dr. 克鲁格是, 太, and the administration has allowed athletics to run athletics and supported us in doing that.” 

随着体育比赛的重新开始, students are “fired up to get back together and do what they love,罗森塔尔说. “That’s why I’m driven to keep going every day.” Because of CUI’s help, a number of programs across the country feel the same way.