San Diego State head water polo coach Carin Crawford talked with GoAztecs.com and discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her and the team in the little over two weeks since the season was canceled.
Crawford is a two-time USA Water Polo Sandy Nitta Distinguished Coaching Award winner, annually bestowed on a coach who has contributed in the growth and success of women's water polo at the collegiate level, and owner of 484 of the program's 575 victories over its 25-year history.
A two-time All-American while competing for UC San Diego, Crawford was a member of the United States National Team from 1989-1992, where she garnered two gold medals, a silver and a bronze in four U.S. Olympic Festivals.
With the cancelation of the remainder 2020 season, she completed her 22nd year at the helm of the Aztec water polo program and in that time has produced three Olympians and five all-region performers. Her student-athletes have earned 44 All-American and 56 all-conference honors as well as 97 academic all-conference designations.
GoAztecs.com: How are you doing?
Carin Crawford: I, along with many others, are going through all the stages of grief as it relates to the canceling the remainder of the season and the consequences of that.
GoAztecs.com: How are the ladies on the team doing and are they all at home?
CC: Everyone made it home. I think the most challenging travel odyssey had to go to Dana Bond, who just got here (during the semester break) from Zimbabwe and then had to turn around and get home as quickly as possible before she wasn't able to leave. So, everyone made it home, or to their residences at SDSU, where few of them are still together and living right behind the (Aztec) Aquaplex.
GoAztecs.com: How often are you in contact with the team?
CC: We maintain a lively chat, which was a tool of communication even when we were able to be together. We started regular zoom meetings. Initially I was trying to get everyone back to a routine. I was hoping we would go through our workout and stretching routine, just to feel like things were stable. But I quickly got the temperature of the team and it seems like everyone is in very different situations now. Online classes have taken their schedules and turned them topsy turvy. Some people have to deal with other siblings being home and trying to learn at home. All of those routines that I thought we could try to resume have proven to be a lot more challenging than I could have imagined.
So, we settled on two meetings per week. We have ambitions to try to get back to some more meaningful water polo business, but right now, it's showing each other our pets, playing some trivia, looking at our pets again and just being together. We're sharing our experiences and how we're managing to adjust to our new reality. So it's a situation where we're trying to lighten things up. It's all very serious out there, but this is hopefully a way to keep the family together and to lighten things up a little bit.
GoAztecs.com: How are you handling not competing at this time of the year when you normally in the full swing of play?
CC: It's really difficult. I feel that the team was really starting to get some good momentum and playing well and believing we could win. Now all my electronic reminders are popping up and say, 'You've got a game today.' Obviously, none of us have ever experienced anything like this, but the constant reminders of the game that we had ahead is especially rough. I feel lucky we are still working, and our athletic department is still functioning, but we can't do what we do without being together. And that goes for our team, as well. The reality of all of that is just still hard to accept and we're still trying to find our way forward. We need to find some closure to the season. In addition to losing the games and not feeling like we were able to finish what we started, we just aren't quite sure how to wrap things up, just at this moment.
GoAztecs.com: How has your recruiting been impacted and in what ways?
CC: Well one of our best recruiting tools is having prospects at our games, but we never got a chance to play at home this season. When we have an opportunity to engage with (high school) juniors who are on our board and invite them to come to a home game, that's probably the best opportunity for them to really see our style of play and my style of coaching. We've missed the opportunity to connect face-to-face with the juniors that we've been engaged with since November. We can engage remotely and we're planning to do that. We had started to look at our summer calendar; we're always planning about four months out. We'd start with the ODP (Olympic Development Program) tournament at the end of May, then the club events in June and July and culminating Junior Olympics qualification tournament at the end of July, so we're a bit unsure about our opportunities to get out and get to watch some games. All of that is in a state of suspension right now.
So, we're really just trying to respond to the athletes that we have been in contact with and let them know that we're still here and we're trying to help them figure out ways to stay engaged athletically. Everyone is trying to figure out when we can get back in the water.
GoAztecs.com: Are there any general training tips that you have given the team?
CC: Actually, that's been one of the interesting and very inspiring parts of all of this; the tremendous outpouring of innovation and sharing of resources for dryland workouts.
This is where I feel like we, as aquatic athletes, are in a dilemma that a land-based athlete is not. We call them dry land workouts for a reason, because they are not in our element, and there's only so much we can do. So, we're innovating. We're doing our best sharing resources and training tips. USA Water Polo and some of their Olympians have some good dry land ball skill training and exercises. Michael Young, our strength coach, has been sending out body weight training workouts as well as more sophisticated workouts if you have some equipment. But really, until we can get back in our unique and wonderful elements, we won't be able to truly make up for what we're missing out on.
GoAztecs.com: What is the most important thing that you, as a coach, can provide the team at this time?
CC: I think one of the things that, as I mentioned earlier, is that we want to train, and we want to stay in shape, and we want to not forget that we're wonderful players. But I think the most important thing I can provide is moral support and trying to keep the team together. Meeting on a regular basis, sharing that it's okay to feel sad and uncertain, and anxious and nervous about all these changes, to just reassure the athletes that we will get to be wonderful players again.
The support that comes from being involved in a team sport like water polo is that sense of camaraderie and the closeness that athletes and coaches share. So, really just keeping that connection is honestly the best thing that I can do. I have considered getting more technical with analyzing video or giving them a drill or sending in a clip of something. But given all of the uncertainty in their lives, traveling home, trying to adapt to online classes, it just hasn't felt like the time is quite right to do that. It's the lack of closure on bringing one season to an end before we start on a new chapter, that's been challenging. The best thing that I can do is to continue to provide mentorship and friendship and keep the team together and keep finding activities that promote the best of what we have in common and what we share.
GoAztecs.com: How do you think the team is doing in general?
CC: It's hard to judge at times. I don't know how many zoom meetings you've been in so far, but I'm seeing a lot of people lying in their bed and not getting dressed. It's 9 a.m. and they're still kind of lying around. It's been hard for me to see them like that; not moving around, not up and about, not putting their sunscreen on and stretching and getting ready to get in (the pool). Everyone's fine, but they are also not where they want to be. I don't think there's a way to really hide that. That's why we all need to support each other as much as we can until we can get back to get back to our normal lives.
GoAztecs.com: What kind of things are you doing personally to deal with this situation?
CC: I'm trying to adapt too. Initially I was focused on making sure everyone got home, is safe and in an environment where they can resume their studies, etc. That felt like it took a week. With that done, I've been trying to get as many online resources and ideas as I can. I have been participating in a three time a week conference call with other water polo coaches. In one, the USC men's team coaches led a video session for about a half an hour. We talked as a group, analyzed a clip and that has really helped me to maintain a sense of, 'Okay, I'm a water polo coach and we are going to be getting back to solving these problems and attacking these game situation dilemmas soon.'
I have also been working on re-imagining ways to engage in online learning as a coach, which I never thought that I would do. So, for example, is it necessary to be in the same room with an athlete when we have a video session and look at game clips? I'm finding out, well, no it's not. Maybe it's more efficient, schedule-wise, for everyone to do a little bit more remote learning. I've also been exploring a lot of ways to collaborate using web-based platforms. And I've been trying to stay in shape myself, doing online workouts. Both my boys play water polo, so I've been passing with them and trying to work on some ball skills and then share those ideas with the team and I've been shooting some hoops in the front yard.
I'm trying to plant a garden and I'm cooking a lot…three meals a day. I haven't done that consistently, not these many days in a row, ever. So, I'm doing my best to stay engaged. I'm trying to get into that routine to wake up, get dressed for work in my SDSU gear, if I'm working, and really delineate work from off time rather than have it all sort of merged together. I miss interacting with colleagues at work and I miss going to San Diego State every day. On an average day on the pool deck, and then walking to and from Fowler (Athletic Center) and I averaged 10,000 steps. So, I'm not really used to sitting this much. I'm trying to adjust to that as well and get up and move more during the day but that's been hard to adjust to.
GoAztecs.com: Can you give us your view on how that team was progressing after 18 of its 29 regular season games were completed?
CC: We started the season with a few unknowns in terms of the goalie position and Emily Bennett, who was recovering from shoulder surgery. So, we practiced all fall without really knowing exactly how our team would look. I think we started to really come together, especially once we got through that gauntlet of tournaments. (In the first two weeks of February) we went from (the Triton Invitational at) UCSD to (the Princeton Invitational in) New Jersey (playing six top-25 programs). I'm not sure how we managed all that cross-country travel, but once we got through that gauntlet and got to (the Barbara Kalbus Invitational at) UC Irvine we started to hit our stride. We had been playing well but not necessarily finishing to get wins. When we won our last two games at UC Irvine, it felt like it really turned on the light switch for our team. We were really believing that we could, not just play well, but win.
We had a good balance of scoring. (Junior driver) Karli Canale (who had hat-tricks in each of her last three games and ranked second on the team with 25 goals) comes to mind as a shooter and scorer. I think (senior utility) Isabelle Hastings, was having a breakout season in her senior year. Emily Bennett (a junior utility) was starting to get back to her old self (leading the team in goals, shots, assists and ejections drawn) and we were incorporating our new young center (freshman) Dayna Bond. We were finally starting to really hit our groove. When we got those two conference wins - (8-4) at Santa Clara and (11-9) at Pacific - it was like okay, here we go. We were feeling really good. We had balanced scoring and we had very solid overall defensive play. That was a winning formula for heading into the most important set of conference games that unfortunately we never got to play.
GoAztecs.com: Coach thank you for your time today and we hope to catch up with one or two of the water polo players in the next couple of weeks.
CC: Thank you. Be safe and together we will get through this and get back to our normal lives.