Student-athletes not at the party voice frustration

According to Vargas, in a team discussion on Monday, softball confirmed that no one on the team attended the party at Wood and reaffirmed its commitment not to attend any large gatherings. “We have to be responsible for ourselves and for this team and for this campus,” Vargas said. “All of us want to get to play, but we also want what’s best for this campus.” 

For some, however, having team discussions is not enough. 

“As someone who was on a sports team, I was kind of appalled at the fact that we didn’t cancel in-person sports, at least for this week [after the party] as a basic precaution against anything,” Young said. 

As an athlete who was remotely enrolled in the fall, Young said the emotional impact of the Wood party was twofold. “I, along with everybody else on this campus who wasn’t at the party, was extremely disappointed, extremely infuriated,” she said. “And it was scary for the first couple of days after that Saturday email. I truly feared that if not enough people had come forward, we would all get sent home.” 

To Young, the possibility of returning home after two weeks on campus brought not only disappointment, but also great risk to personal health and the health of her family. 

“I feel very strongly about this on a personal scale,” she said. “I have asthma, which means I’m high risk and I currently take medication for asthma. My mother is immunocompromised because she had cancer, and she’s still on steroids for that. Luckily, she got vaccinated. And then my father is a frontline health worker. So it’s kind of like the trifecta of people who would get COVID, and it’d be really scary.”