2020’s “The New Normal”

2020: 3-2 (No League Games) The Year of Covid-19 CIF Schedule due to California Mandates

Heading into February 2020 everything looked great for the Truckee Wolverine Football team.  Offseason workouts were in full swing and the Wolverines had high hopes heading into the 2020 football season.  Truckee had a rough start to the 2019 football season but made progress weekly finishing off their season on a six game win streak which included a 48-7 win over the Elko Indians in the first round of the playoffs.  Truckee would then travel to Fernley to take on the Vaqueros.  This was a game for the ages.  Truckee would take Fernley to the bitter end of this game nearly completing an upset.  In the end it was Fernley who advanced with a 35-28 win.  Fernley would go on to win a State Championship over Fallon who fielded arguably their best team in school history.  Truckee had few holes to fill heading into the 2020 season and the future was looking very promising.  One of the holes that would need to be filled was the 800 plus yards and seven TD’s from graduating senior Deacon Mehler.  This gaping hole would be filled in January when Tyler Curry moved to Truckee.  Curry was a 5’7″ 200 pound wrecking ball who played with a chip on his shoulder.  He was immediately welcomed into the Truckee football family.  Anders Norman would also return to the team after taking a year off.  Anders was a 6′ 220 pound beast who was missed during the 2019 season.  Many of Truckee’s football players were out for the track team as well in the spring of 2020 and momentum was building.  Everything appeared to be heading in the right direction for Truckee and the team knew they would have a good chance of making a deep run in the playoffs in the fall of 2020.  Then suddenly on March 13th everything came to a screeching halt…across the globe.  Covid-19 had hit the US and everything shutdown.  A government shutdown for 15 days to slow the spread of Covid turned into a two year debacle where we saw the death of many fellow Americans.  We would also see the death of Normalcy and it was replaced with rules, guidelines, and mandates that would change how we all see the world. It’s hard to explain the mindset at the time everything was shutdown.  One thing I do remember thinking is that we’d be back in school after Spring Break.  At the worst I thought that Track season would be canceled.  It never crossed my mind that a shutdown that had started in March would carry into the summer months and right into the next school year.  That’s exactly what happened and not only was “in person” school in jeopardy, sports for the 2020/2021 school year was looking very grim.  While many States across the US pressed forward and played fall athletics, California and Nevada were at a standstill.  In August Nevada postpones all athletics until further notice.  The reality was starting to set in that a football season might not take place.  A devastating thought for all of our athletes but especially our seniors.