Student Athletes: Got the No Sports Blues? Turn to Twitter.
Just because they’re not out on the diamond, Mahopac Softball Varsity Head Coach Cristina Giansante knows maintaining team cohesion is critical, as is making sure her players remain upbeat. In fact, taking active steps to solidify that team chemistry — and general mental health — might be more important than ever for coaches to monitor as student-athletes from across the region grapple with the uncomfortable and depressing reality of being barred from the ball field amidst the COVID-19 shutdown.
That’s why on Mar. 24, while she was doing her usual check-in with the girls on their mental state, Giansante asked her squad members what they were doing around the house to stay fit, besides the largely expected routine of hitting off a batting tee in their yards.
“It was my senior/captain Carolyn Galizia who was the one who came up with the idea to do a team challenge,” Giansante recalled. “The last few weeks on social media there’s been “See 10 Do 10″ individual push-up challenges and she thought it would be fun to do it and send it over to some of our classmates.”
So with that each player sent Coach Giansante a video and she compiled all the footage into a montage. Then she sent it off to the school’s varsity girls lacrosse team and the varsity boys baseball team.
“From there they challenged Somers baseball, Yorktown baseball, and JJEF baseball,” Giansante explained. “And well then it went from there. We thought it would be a good way to get the teams ‘together’ and feeling that sense of one cohesive unit, while staying fit. I remind the girls quite often how important physical health is to our mental health.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the 24-second video the Mahopac softball team posted on Mar. 24 had generated 997 views, 46 “likes” and four retweets.
Galizia, the senior captain, noted how the team was already looking for ways to stay fit when she learned about the social media phenomenon.
“I saw on Instagram a lot of people doing the ‘See 10 Do 10” challenge with pushups,” Galizia remarked. “We were talking to coach about workout ideas, so I thought it would be cool if we could do that and tag our baseball team girls lacrosse team, and other sports teams to keep us all involved. We are all trying to stay active during this time, so I thought this was a fun way to do it.”
Yorktown Softball Head Coach Samantha Fernandez, in her second year coaching the team, mentioned how Yorktown baseball challenged her group to the challenge.
“We have been doing challenges within our team along with other teams,” she said. “We do four virtual workouts a week as well as challenge the players to work everyday on their own.”
As for Giansante, she explained how a pick-me-up was certainly needed, observing how it’s “been a rough month for us.”
“We have a state caliber team, and we’ve been working for weeks, months, on end,” she said. “It’s especially hard for my seniors and it being their last hurrah, especially when everyone knows we had a date with states in our minds.”
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.