Women's Tennis 4/21/2020 2:00:00 PM Chris Brannick

In Their Words: Paola Landin

A Student-Athlete's Account of the Year Unlike Any Other

As a global pandemic, COVID-19 has affected the on-goings of everyday life in countries around the world, in the United States and even at Central. For many UCO student-athletes, their seasons came to an abrupt end much sooner than expected. Paola Landin is an All-American tennis player and junior at UCO. She is on pace to become the winningest player in school history. Perhaps that would've happened later this year. It will have to wait. This is her experience.

Growing up in Los Cabos, Mexico I played soccer, tennis, and did gymnastics. At the age of 12 I fell in love with tennis and since then tennis has given me the opportunity to play at the collegiate level while earning an education in human resource management.

I would never have thought that my junior year would have ended like this. I couldn't believe that the season was canceled. I remember the team and I were getting ready for our first spring break trip to California and everyone was really looking forward to that. Everyone was working hard for that moment to come, just having a good time while playing the sport we love with the best coaches we could ask for. We were just excited for California.

I never watch the news, so I didn't even know what was happening until our coach told us about it. He mentioned that there was a virus going on in China and was spreading to Europe and in my mind, I was thinking there's no way we are going to get the virus, we are going to be fine. A few days later, he gathered the whole team and told us that the virus was in the U.S. already and that things were going to get bad. Half of the team are international girls. They are all from Europe but me (I'm from Mexico) and the European girls started to worry about the virus going on since their families live in Europe. I never realized how bad the situation was, I kept telling myself that we were going to be okay and that it was just going to be temporary.

Back in January we got the sad news that one of our freshmen, Patricia was not going to return next year and that the spring was going to be her last season ever with the team, but that did not stop us from having a good time and enjoying each other company.

Going back to the week that we were getting ready for California. It was a Monday and we were flying to California on Thursday evening. That Monday at practice coach seemed nervous. He told us that most likely the trip was going to be canceled. The following day we came back to practice and he gave us the news that the virus was getting worse and worse every day and that other schools have canceled their spring break trips but, that we were still going to go to our trip.

One day away from flying to California (Wednesday), before we started practice he then said "Girls, I am sorry to tell you all this but, the school has canceled our trip," we were all sad, disappointed, mad that we were not going to get to play against those tough schools. The team wanted to prove that we are just as good as everyone else playing that tournament.

Later on, we kind of got over it and we were like, okay we might not go on that trip and play there, but we still have our conference matches coming up next week so we would get to play then. We will have to continue working hard until then. We continued the week as any other week. I went to class on Thursday and I got a text from my coach asking everyone to meet in his office at 12, I knew something was wrong, but I was just hoping that would not be something about the season.

Right after I finished my class, I went to my coach's office, I was a few minutes late due to my class. I walked in and I saw everyone crying and that's when my coach told me that my teammate Patricia was leaving to Switzerland the next morning and that she was not coming back. It broke my heart knowing that we only had half of a day together before she would take a plane and go back. She made a big impact on this team. I have never met someone with such a big heart. She was going to be missed.

One of Patricia's favorite places is Menchie's, so the coaches decided to cancel practice and go to Menchie's, get dinner and spend the day together. After Menchie's everyone went back to their places to get ready for dinner. Two friends from the golf team stop by and I remember them walking in mad, sad and yelling that spring sports were canceled. My teammates and I looked at each other and couldn't believe it.

We looked at our phone and we saw a text from coach saying, this may be the hardest message for me to ever write. NCAA has just ended all spring sports for this year.

That Thursday has been the worst day in my college career. We received heartbreaking news twice in one day. We had such an amazing fall season, all the effort, the hard work, the hours put on the court and on the gym almost felt like we did all that for nothing. We were not going to be able to prove everything we have worked for. We all knew that this year was our year and we were excited to make our coaches and school proud.

However, this just brought us closer together and we are going to be ready for next year to prove how good this team is and how far we can make it. We were starting to wonder if we were going to get this year back, but no one was able to give us an answer. I'm a big believer that after something bad happens something good will come into your life. That being said, a few days later we got the news that NCAA was going to give a year back to every spring sport.

That was a big relief for us knowing that we were going to have another opportunity to prove how good we are. Honestly, our situation could've been worse. I have friends on the wrestling team in which one of them is a senior, that they were in their national tournament ready on the mat and they couldn't perform due to the virus. Unfortunately, they are not getting that year back.

Thankfully the tennis team didn't have any seniors. I hope every team is ready for the Bronchos next year, because we are still striving for our goals and COVID-19 is not stopping us.

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Players Mentioned

Paola Landin: 5' 0"; Junior

Players Mentioned

Paola Landin
: 5' 0"; Junior