![\"Thorr](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/magazine\/sites\/13\/2021\/03\/Thorr-Bjorn-1024x826.jpg\")
A day earlier, the Atlantic 10 Men\u2019s Basketball Championship was cancelled\u2014a major decision, which Bjorn had been part of as chair of the league\u2019s athletic director\u2019s committee. The restaurant the Bjorns stepped into was sparsely populated, a real-time preview of the months ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just 24 hours earlier, the couple had gone to dinner at a packed, bustling city restaurant, a scene that, today, feels like a distant memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople were talking about COVID, and you kind of felt it was coming, but there were no masks, and the restaurant we went to was busy,\u201d Bjorn says. \u201cThe next night, it was a lot different. The restaurant was very spread out, and there were maybe 10 people inside. It was an eerie feeling, totally eerie. We left to come home that Friday, and everything had changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the months that followed, the COVID pandemic dominated everything. College athletics became an uncertain landscape wrought with fits and starts. It began with the cancellation of the basketball postseason and bled into the halting of spring sports in 2020. As weeks passed, it became apparent that the fall 2020 season was not to be, at least not everywhere. While the Power 5 conferences proceeded with sports\u2014particularly football\u2014the Atlantic 10 joined the majority of conferences around the country in postponement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI ask, \u2018Why?\u2019 a lot. \u2018Why is that the plan? Why are we doing that?\u2019 I don\u2019t want things done just because it is the easy way,\u201d Bjorn says. \u201cHealth and well-being for the student-athletes is our number-one priority. But we also promised our student-athletes that we would try to give them opportunities to compete this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn many cases, that is the reason they\u2019re here\u2014why they chose Rhode Island over another school,\u201d Bjorn adds. \u201cWe have a responsibility to proceed in the safest manner possible while remembering that we promised we would try to provide that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHealth and well-being for the student-athletes is our number-one priority. But we also promised our student-athletes that we would try to give them opportunities to compete this year.\u201d Providing opportunities to compete led the Atlantic 10 to an unprecedented decision. Plans came together for abbreviated seasons for all fall teams to have championship seasons. A similar decision was made by CAA Football, meaning that between January and April 2021, every athletic team at Rhode Island would be in season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s been amazing is the work our administrative staff and coaches have done to figure out policies and make sure we are following through on everything,\u201d Bjorn says. \u201cThe ability to adjust to the curveballs has been incredible. It has\u00a0been a challenging time that I don\u2019t ever want to go through again, but my level of pride is over the top. Gratitude isn\u2019t\u00a0a strong enough word for the work that has been done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2014January 19, 2021\u2014Bjorn looks out his office window and sees the women\u2019s track and field team working out. Earlier in the day, he popped out to Meade Stadium to watch the football team practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt feels far more normal going into the spring 2021 semester than it did starting the fall 2020 semester,\u201d Bjorn says. \u201cWe have proven we can do it with the basketball season, and now our student-athletes believe we are doing everything we can to deliver on that promised opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is not the new normal. It is a temporary pain, and it has not been easy. But we can get back to normal. We will get back, and we are doing it.\u201d \u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014Shane Donaldson \u201999<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Drew Adame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 溏心vlog免费B站 athletic director Thorr Bjorn on adapting to college athletics during COVID<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2021","architecture-currents","architecture-go-rhody"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5677"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6130,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5677\/revisions\/6130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2014Thorr Bjorn<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n