Over the approaching months, Cal and Stanford, the most recent members of the Atlantic Coast Convention, will develop into accustomed to a slew of recent convention opponents. The checklist of names consists of Duke and Miami, Louisville and North Carolina, Clemson and Notre Dame. Their most difficult opponent, although, received’t be one they meet on a subject, court docket or pitch.
Will probably be the journey – and the litany of challenges that include it.
“This year is going to be a learning year for all of us,” mentioned Josh Hummel, Cal’s government senior affiliate athletics director. “It’s trial and error for a bit. We’re going to go based on our assumptions, which are rooted in science and conversations and everything else. We’ll go, we’ll see how it works, then, if we need to, make changes.”
The faculties’ transition to the ACC received’t have an effect on the journey schedules of most of their sports activities. Of Stanford’s 36 groups, the college says 22 will both be minimally impacted or not impacted in any respect. For Cal’s 30 groups, that quantity is eighteen. However as for soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, soccer, volleyball and others? They’re set to develop into frequent fliers.
Cal Bears soccer participant Ricky Correia and his teammates head to board their bus after follow on the Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The Bears traveled by way of bus to a flight to its first ACC sport at Florida State. (Ray Chavez/Bay Space Information Group)
Each staff within the ACC apart from Cal, Stanford and fellow newcomer SMU resides within the Japanese Time Zone. Cal and Stanford’s flights to face the likes of Duke, North Carolina and Miami will routinely be five-plus hours, not together with transportation and inevitable delays. These lengthy hours within the air stand to have an effect on the our bodies and minds of every program’s athletes.
“Traveling multiple time zones will make them less likely to perform athletically, but it also increases injury risk, too,” mentioned Dr. Nirav Pandya, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and sports activities drugs specialist at UCSF.
Earlier than this week, solely the lads’s soccer groups had performed an ACC highway sport. Ladies’s soccer opened the ACC schedule Thursday night time. The soccer groups play their first convention highway video games this weekend — Cal at Florida State, Stanford at Syracuse — whereas ladies’s volleyball groups will play their first highway video games subsequent week.
Cal and Stanford can’t get rid of the results of journey, however each colleges are trying to reduce its influence. Cal has labored with sleep and vitamin consultants to tell coaches and athletes of greatest practices whereas on the highway – and on a aircraft. Each applications may also go away sooner than normal for competitions to account for shifting time zones.
“There’s some people that say go out the day before. We’re going to go out a day early and see how we like it,” mentioned Stanford soccer head coach Troy Taylor.
The primary purpose of leaving earlier is to permit athletes to acclimate their sleep schedules to a brand new time zone. In response to Doug Gardner, the founding father of ThinkSport Consulting Companies in Lafayette, sleep is “the greatest performance enhancer there is.”
“No matter how you try to circumvent it or facilitate it, it’s still going to have an impact no matter what,” Gardner mentioned.
There’s additionally the matter of psychological well being, which Pandya mentioned may even see “more profound” impacts than the bodily journey results.
In response to a 2023 NCAA research on student-athlete well being and wellness, psychological well being issues for school athletes “generally have improved since 2020, but are still at relatively high levels.” Extra time on the highway not solely leads to much less time for research, but additionally to get pleasure from a social life. Gardner and Pandya level out that lowered bodily potential stemming from elevated journey can, in flip, lead to a poorer psychological state – and vice versa.
“I’m not performing well, then I get in my head, and if that continues, that can develop into something where it becomes more of a mental health issue for somebody,” Gardner mentioned.
Cal and Stanford received’t have the ability to utterly mitigate these points, however Gardner believes each colleges have robust assets to assist athletes.
Levi Rogers and his teammates board buses in PAC 12 Plaza as they go away Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, for Syracuse, New York and their first ACC sport. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
In response to Gardner, Cal is among the few universities within the nation that has devoted efficiency psychologists along with medical psychologists. In 2020, Cal opened the Cameron Institute for Scholar-Athlete Improvement, which at present has 4 psychological efficiency coaches. Gardner additionally famous that Stanford has licensed sports activities psychologists on workers as effectively.
“They have one of the deepest performance psychology departments in the NCAA, period,” Gardner mentioned.
Cal ladies’s volleyball coach Jen Malcom mentioned her staff has restoration instruments equivalent to Normatec compression boots, a Hyperice Venom therapeutic massage wrap, compression pants, foam rollers, blue gentle glasses and two completely different water bottles (one with common water, one with electrolytes).
“That is a long list of things,” Malcom laughed, “We’re trying to make sure that it’s pretty seamless for them even though we’re traveling cross country.”
Added Cal volleyball participant Sophia Johnson: “We do a lot of journaling before and after practice on where we’re at. I feel like our coaches and the support staff at Cal has been super helpful in giving us all the resources we need to feel super prepared and confident heading into this first match.”
Navigating lessons whereas touring is one other potential stressor. Cal’s student-athletes will meet their professors in the beginning of the semester and work by way of the logistics. Moreover, groups will journey with studying specialists, tutors and check proctors as needed.
Stanford officers didn’t reply in time for publication, however athletic director Bernard Muir acknowledged final month that the college should strike a steadiness for athletes to finish their work.
Regardless of his reward of Cal and Stanford’s mental-health assets, Gardner notes that “no matter what resources you have, student-athletes are going to have to go have the lived experience, and that right there is going to be a challenge for them.”
Cal Bears soccer gamers head to board their bus after follow on the Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, Calif., on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The Bears traveled by way of bus to a flight to its first ACC sport at Florida State. (Ray Chavez/Bay Space Information Group)
Gardner and Pandya consider that the transition to the ACC will influence Cal and Stanford’s potential to recruit, including that some present athletes will switch after experiencing the inaugural yr within the ACC.
Malcom and Cal males’s soccer coach Leonard Griffin pointed to different realities in faculty sports activities. Malcom famous that among the many Energy 4 conferences, the SEC is the one league left with each college in a single geographic space.
“I think that the lure of playing at the highest level and playing against the best competition that you can have in the country outweighs the travel,” Griffin mentioned. “Right now, that’s in the ACC.”
Solely time will inform whether or not the athletes agree.
Stanford’s soccer staff leaves PAC 12 Plaza in Stanford, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, with a CHP escort for his or her experience to the airport to catch a flight to Syracuse, New York and their first ACC sport. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
