Chances are unless you’re a huge track and field fan you don’t know the names Dylan Jacobs, Edward Cheatham, Sam Voelz, Yared Nuguse, Jake Renfree, Rachel Tanczos or Abbey Kapitan. To fill you in, they’re all Notre Dame student-athletes who qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in track and field this spring.
None of the three are going to compete in the Olympics or have careers in track and field professionally after college. For them, nationals are as big as it gets. Just a few weeks back they were set to compete at nationals in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as COVID-19 was in the process of becoming the story of 2020 in the United States.
They made it to New Mexico but were unable to compete. If you like human-interest stories or just appreciate the hard work collegiate athletes put into their crafts, you’ll enjoy the nine minutes it takes to watch the short documentary put together on exactly this by Notre Dame’s video team.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4fbWjfvwBo&w=560&h=315]
Clearly, there are more pressing issues out there than if an athlete got to compete in a game, meet or match, but it doesn’t mean you can’t help feeling bad for all of the athletes and students in general nationwide who don’t get to have their normal competitions, proms, last few weeks of college or high school or any of it.
Again, great job by the advanced media team at Notre Dame as they’ve been cranking out some outstanding content lately.