By Jessica Jimenez — Reporter
It’s not every day that the world succumbs to a global pandemic and everything gets canceled.
Concerts stopped, dining in at restaurants stopped, and the worst of all for many of us– sports have come to a temporary end.
The cancellation of the spring sport season left San Jose State athletes feeling uncertain if they would have the opportunity to continue their sport for another season.
On March 30, just two and a half weeks after sports were called off, the NCAA announced that spring sport athletes would receive an extra year of eligibility.
For three senior athletes, hearing this was a big sigh of relief knowing that they are given the opportunity to return to their respective sport.
Several aspects played into senior softball player Cassidy Clark’s decision of staying an extra year.
She has already extended her graduation to May 2021 to further her education.
“I wanted to go out on my own terms,” Clark said. “I totally understand why the decision was made to cancel sports, but at the same time I love my program, the staff and the girls that I play with and I wasn’t ready to be done at this point.”
Jacqui Maisey, a senior water polo player is still deciding on whether or not to remain with her team for another year.
“Unfortunately, there are a lot of factors that go into eligibility such as academics since I will finish my degree in a few weeks,” Maisey said.
Senior softball player Mackenzie Drake will not take the extra year of eligibility due to other commitments she has in the works.
Drake will be graduating this month and does not want to lengthen her graduation date to play another season because she is going to become an EMT and eventually become a firefighter.
“I was really nervous about the pandemic not ceasing too,” Drake said. “Who knows what a year from now is going to look like or even just the fall semester and so there were a lot of things up in the air that made me weary.”
Many athletes have opinions on the NCAA granting an added year of eligibility and these three seniors feel it is a positive outcome, especially for seniors who did not see their season all the way through.
Clark appreciates the fact that the NCAA will let her go out under her own conditions.
“Giving me the choice made me feel empowered in a way because I felt so lost for a few days after everything happened,” she said.
Drake believes there was good reasoning behind the NCAA’s decision.
She is especially happy for females in sports to receive an extra year because specifically in her sport, it is rare to have a future career after collegiate softball.
“I think given the amount of time that was taken away from our season in how I missed out on two and a half months’ worth of games, practices and competitions, I think that in itself was a good reason to give people eligibility back,” Drake said.
There will be new challenges that come with an additional year of eligibility.
There will be scholarship limits the universities can distribute to athletes, recruiting and roster size will all play a role in some complications that will arise.
Universities will be able to use the NCAA’s Student Assistance Fund to pay for scholarships for athletes who decide to take advantage of the extra year of eligibility for the 2020-21 season according to the Associated Press.
Drake can envision how a lot of programs will be affected by the challenges. For her roster, sizes will be the biggest dispute.
“The incoming recruited freshman from high school will be affected greatly because we had four seniors on the softball team that started and if all of us were to return the odds of them playing as a freshman go even lower,” Drake said. “Even if you are the best one.”
As Maisey is deciding whether or not she will move forward with another year of eligibility, she did have many hopes for her team for the 2020 season.
“We had a lot of growth this year and came in as the underdogs and surprised a lot of people,” she said. “We are a young team with a lot of talented players, and I would’ve loved to see us compete even more with the top teams.
The women’s water polo team has a new coaching staff that pushed the program to be more competitive as it was in recent years and Maisey’s main goal was to have had more growth for herself and for her teammates.
Clark’s goal for the softball team from the beginning of the season was to win another ring.
She and her teammates won the Mountain West Softball Championships in 2017.
For the 2021 season, the hope of winning another title will be at the forefront of her mind.
“I am really excited for the opportunity to play again and do it better,” Clark said.
Like her teammate, Drake was hopeful of winning another championship title for her final year.
Before the NCAA officially canceled spring sports on March 12, the softball team went 21-5.
“We were winning a lot of games and obviously the hope was to kill it in conference, and we were voted to winning conference this year which was super exciting,” Drake said.
Collectively, all three senior athletes can agree that their respective program is what made their sport better than they could ever imagine.
Playing with a group of females who empower one another and have created life-long friendships is something that they are forever thankful for.
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