Liberty Combines Fall And Spring Sports Schedules For Spring Semester

With the exception of football, the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the season for all of Liberty’s fall NCAA sports. All fall sports were slated to play spring seasons alongside the regular spring sports, but coordinating the logistics for a massive combined spring season has presented an unexpected challenge for Liberty’s athletic department.

Between the beginning of the spring semester in January and its end in May, Liberty will host 140 sporting events across 19 sports, including everything from women’s volleyball to cross-country. The influx of events created the need for more coordination between the marketing, athletic administration and facilities departments in a way the school has never seen before.

Even with careful planning and brainstorming between Liberty’s departments and the other universities within Liberty’s conferences, numerous variables could radically alter the season – the most obvious being athletes or coaches testing positive for COVID-19.

“We normally like to be proactive and have our schedule planned out, but this season, we are very much in a reactive state,” Senior Associate Athletics Director for Administration Erin Hagen said. “My message to players and coaches has been: ‘Remain flexible.’”

Flexibility and compromise were key themes as Liberty tried to coordinate its schedules. Each sport first needed to determine whether it would have a conference-only schedule or allow inter-conference play. Many sports scheduled opponents within driving distance to limit travel within airports (although some sports will have to fly for competitions).

If teams scheduled opponents in other conferences, each team would have to meet that conference’s COVID-19 protocol in order to compete and the protocol can vary from one conference to another. 

Liberty has issued roughly 12,000 COVID-19 tests thus far to protect player health and ensure a successfully completed season.

“My hope for this season is to carry out our mission of providing athletes and coaches with a world-class athletic experience,” Hagen said. “After all the adversity we’ve faced, if they can walk away from this season and say they had a good experience, we know we’ve accomplished that goal.”

As the season progresses, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, field hockey, lacrosse, softball, baseball, volleyball, golf, basketball and track & field will all play this season. 

John Simmons is the Web Manager. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnSimmonsJr7.