Rutgers' Greg Schiano bolstered by family dinners amid coronavirus uncertainty
Life has been altered inexorably since the coronavirus outbreak, with the global pandemic changing the daily routines of virtually everyone.
And for a college football coach like the Rutgers Scarlet Knights’ Greg Schiano, whose carefully choreographed spring schedule used to include things like practices, team meetings and recruiting trips, being sequestered in a home office and communicating via phone and internet conferencing is as seismic a shift as there is in the sports landscape.
But for Schiano, rehired to resurrect the Scarlet Knights’ program in December, some tangible benefits have emerged from the work-at-home program, sheltering in place with his wife, Christy, and their four children.
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“The neat thing,” he said on a conference call this week, “I think in any adversity there’s always opportunity, and one of the things that I think has been a really cool thing is I’ve had more family dinners in the last month than I’ve probably had in the last 20 years. So that has been really a great benefit of a very tough time.
“We do have all four of our children at home and I have tried to do exactly what the experts have told us to do … it’s been neat to have everyone together.”
And while there are daily virtual meetings with coaches and players in an attempt to move the program forward, and with school administrators and league officials in trying to deal with an uncertain future, the threat of the COVID-19 virus remains omnipresent, as Schiano tries to keep the promises he made to so many families during the recruiting process, more important now than ever before.
“I have tried to stay focused on is the health and well-being of our players and where we can help their families,” Schiano said. “I owe it to these kid’s parents and guardians that they are safe and healthy, so I have spent the clear majority of my time on that.
“We’ve had players who have lost people to the virus. Sad, right? And things you don’t even think about. They had to do a virtual family service for their lost loved one. Like those are hard things.”
Rutgers has already canceled on-campus classes and activities through Aug. 14, including all athletic events. There may be a chance, however, for athletes to be allowed to return before then to begin preseason practice in conjunction with the Big Ten, although much of that likely depends on the ability to contain the virus in New Jersey.
“This is where I am,” Schiano said. “We are preparing for any number of different situations but the reality is that I am not really qualified nor is it my place to speculate on what would happen or when it would happen or how it would happen.
“I have been coming up with different contingency plans, but for me to speculate when and how I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
The problem for Schiano is that, having just returned to the program for the first time since leaving after the 2011 to become the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he and his coaching staff had a long to-do list in terms of installing new systems and changing the way everything was done. There is also the matter of determining who the starting quarterback will be, with Art Sitkowski and Johnny Langan expected to battle for the job.
“I think any time you’re a new staff you are behind a little bit because you are installing things for the first time, whether it be football or culture or whatever it is,” Schiano said. “Does this throw us further behind? I don’t know because everybody is kind of dealing with the same circumstances.”
Schiano will be trying to build a competitive Big Ten football program remotely for the foreseeable future, which might just be the toughest job in sports right now.
“The days are equally as demanding, it’s just kind of in a different format,” he said. “I do have to make sure that I get up and make sure I do something, go get a workout in or go for a walk, otherwise I could be conceivably sitting in my office for 12 to 18 hours on any day.”
And until life returns to a semblance of normalcy, whatever that looks like, Schiano and other football coaches across the country will find comfort in events like family dinners, which, along with the coronavirus, will eventually disappear.