ROCHELLE — Dale Bergeson wasn’t expecting his first season as head coach of the Rochelle Hub track and field program to begin in the middle of a global pandemic. Despite a challenging adjustment, Bergeson and Lady Hub coach Alison Vrana have utilized the program’s fall contact days over the last two months to meet with student-athletes and organize individual workouts.

Not many teams have lost more opportunities to compete than the track and field programs, which saw their spring seasons canceled and any chances to participate with the Rochelle Area Track Club over the summer taken away because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, both teams have been able to work out at the RTHS track and field facility over the last two months. That’s courtesy of the 20 fall contact days allotted to track and field programs by the IHSA.

“We’ve been doing mostly event-specific workouts, particularly in the field events,” Bergeson said. “We’ve also been working with our hurdlers and our jumpers. Our runners have been staying in shape with workouts we’ve been giving them… We’ve never had practices here during the offseason, but given that our season ended in March, we didn’t want to have 13 months of no contact with our kids. We’ve seen our kids every week for the last eight weeks and we’ve been able to work with them and give them things to do on their days off.”

With winter sports scheduled to begin Nov. 16, no decisions have been made regarding whether or not track and field programs will have an indoor season for the 2020-21 school year. Track and field is considered a low-risk sport by the IDPH, meaning athletes can participate in conference meets and COVID-regional nonconference meets only. Track and field was one of several traditional spring sports pushed to the summer season, which starts on April 19, 2021.

“We’ve been working with many of the student-athletes competing in events where there are a lot of techniques involved,” Vrana said. “We’re helping the kids make up for the time they lost when our spring season was canceled. We have a lot of high jumpers, long jumpers, triple jumpers and throwers coming back, so we want them to be ready for the upcoming season. We had encouraged kids to run over the summer and we lent out equipment to the kids so they can still work out on their own... These practices have been great for bringing the kids together.”