Writing and photos by: Kara Wagenknecht

A bright light illuminated the end of the dark hallway as music and cheers pulsated through the walls and filled the remaining silence. Evan Battey walks to the blinding light until he is engulfed. Just a year ago the stands sat empty. Every sound in the stadium could be heard. The silence was deafening. Now, fans echo between the walls.

In the last year and a half, athletes have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic. Athletes went from having sold out stands filled with hundreds of people cheering them on to playing with empty stadiums with cardboard cutouts filling the void.

Since the world shut down, many have had to adjust what they do day to day. From being isolated from the world to now back in crowds and at events like athletic competitions.

During this time of isolation and loneliness, athletes have had a hard time adjusting to the crowds of fans. Athletes have had to train by themselves for a year and a half away from their team and coaches and it’s led to many athletes running into low confidence while performing.

“A lot of these guys don’t know what it’s like having fans in the building, so it’s going to be an adjustment for each of us including myself. We’re going to adjust and we’re going to win the games and really get through it,” said Evan Battey, a fifth year starting forward for CU Men's Basketball.

Sports psychologist, doctor Brian Zuleger, works hands on with athletes struggling with low confidence. As a former athlete and coach, Zuleger is able to incorporate his love for coaching and sports into helping athletes to succeed.

“If you identified as an athlete, and [your life] centered around training and competition, that's what was your motivation, and that's what drove you; you don’t really have any other part of your identity, you don’t really have anything else that measured who you are: your self worth, your self esteem, all of [that is] centered around being an athlete—your confidence was centered around being an athlete,” said Zuleger. “Now all of a sudden, sport competitions are completely removed for a while. And training is completely altered or non-existent.”

Closed court

The faint dribbles of basketballs fill the empty stadium. The stands only seat a few rows of cardboard cutouts. The only people in the quiet stadium are approved members of the media and the teams.

The year before the stands sat full, crowds booming as the Buffs battled on the court. A year and a half later, the Buffs prepared to take on the 2021-22 season with fans back in the CU Events Center, but getting to this point was a journey.

In March 2020, the Colorado Buffaloes Men's Basketball team was about to board a plane to the NCAA PAC-12 Tournament when they got a call that it was canceled due to COVID-19. After that call, the team scattered back across the country to their homes.

During their months of isolation, it was hard to find motivation to do the workouts everyday, not just for athletes, but everyone in the world struggled.

"I think [the pandemic] affected every person on the planet in some way, shape, or form. I think those effects will be felt by all generations for years to come in some way, shape, or form only because we've never been through anything like that. "Our world likes to be connected and that connection was cut in a lot of ways," said JR Payne, CU Women's head Basketball coach. "Our student athletes were very fortunate that they had each other and for the most part, their teammates are the people that they're closest to, you know, besides their families, those are their best friends. Those are their sisters and so to have that in the midst of all that isolation of everything else in the world, I think is a was a real blessing."

Coming back after months of separation, things were still far from normal. During the 2020-21 season, the men’s and women's basketball teams were put up in hotels during the season in order to minimize the spread of COVID-19.

These hotel suites only hosted one player.

"I just was really worried about everyone being alone. Our team is really close and they spend a ton of time together. They're always doing something together," said Payne. "Even if they're just making dinner and playing video games, or so. I was very worried about everyone just being by themselves. And they were in the same hotel. They were down the hall from each other, but it still was pretty isolating."

Sophomore Leah Mayer stands alone in her dorm room. The infamous application called Zoom is pulled up on her laptop as her coach in California begins baton practice. In the past year and a half, Zoom has taken over the world. Universities, families and instructors have all used Zoom to connect with each other, teach and have something somewhat normal.

Mayer is one of the Feature Twirlers for the Golden Buffalo Marching Band. She came to CU as a freshman at the height of the pandemic last year. Football games and in-person practice were off the table.

For Mayer, it was difficult to practice on Zoom especially in her tiny dorm room.

“Sometimes we would have marching band zoom practices, which did not work out whatsoever. They were trying to teach the marching in dorm rooms, and I don't learn marching because I don't march, I just throw [my baton] the whole time. So I would just sit there on a zoom call, confused and bored,” Mayer said.

It was not easy for Mayer to find motivation. As a goal-oriented athlete, she found herself not wanting to practice or do anything baton related since the pandemic shut down both competitions and football games.

Mayer tried her best to make things as normal as possible during this time. In normal years, the marching band would travel with the football team to various stadiums across the country. During the CU football bowl game against the University of Texas last year, the band was not able to travel and perform.

“I was in my living room back home in California. We were watching, my parents and I, had the game on and whatever a commercial break or halftime [came] on, we would turn on a song in my living room, and I would do a mini performance to my parents. I was so sad. I felt like I was seven again,” Mayer said.

Zuleger worked a lot with athletes who struggled during the peak of the pandemic when there were no games or performances. A tactic he used to help athletes struggling during this time was finding other things within the athletes' life that aren't related to athletics and focusing on building those aspects up.

"We're trying to build a self esteem and identity and competence that aren't so heavily dependent on athletic performance or sport outcomes. So this idea that I'm okay with who I am as a person, regardless of how I perform, my identity is more than an athlete," said Zuleger. "So if athletics is going well, great, if it's not, it's not the end of the world, because maybe I'm a student, maybe I'm a brother or a sister whatever it is you have other things that make up your identity."

This year, the marching band was able to participate in the game day festivities again.

For Mayer, the moment she got to run back on the field made everything worth it.

“It’s almost like not having a year almost made it better, because everyone cherished and appreciated it so much more than we would have if it was just another normal year,” said Mayer.

Soaking it all up

For six straight years, senior Gary Marston has been in the pool playing water polo.

Until a year and a half ago.

His junior season at CU was cut due to COVID-19. Like many during this time, Marston lived in an off-campus house with his close friends. They kept to themselves and followed the COVID-19 guidelines put in place.

“We couldn't really get together with the guys because it was prime COVID time. So we were trying to stay within our house and our close friend group. So yeah, it was definitely a weird year, not just skipping a year of water polo is very strange,” Marston said.

After years of having a consistent water polo season it was hard for Marston not competing, but most of all it was hard not seeing the rest of the team.

“I really missed it, personally. Because getting with the team, my freshman year, I know that the water polo team was a great way for me as a freshman to actually get integrated into the school. Because I didn't want to join a fraternity and there weren't many clubs I was interested in besides water polo,” Marston said.

“But it was a really, really great group of guys … Honestly, just being with teammates, who you can call great friends, going on travel tournaments with each other, going to practice every day. It really is a good time. So when we weren't able to have that my junior year, there was a pretty big blow,” said Marston.

The CU club water polo season stretches the length of fall semester. As his final season winds down, Marston looks forward to soaking in everything from tournaments, practices and traveling to different cities with his teammates.

“I'm super, super grateful that I wasn't a senior last year, for more reasons than just water polo. But water polo is definitely one of them,” Marston said. “Having a final season and being able to go out after going to Nationals, considering our team hadn't gotten to nationals in the entirety of the time that I've been at the school, it felt really good. And yeah, being in a ‘more normal world’ allowed us to travel to Alabama and actually compete against some really good teams. Get our asses kicked in a few circumstances, which doesn't really happen very often. So it was, it was really nice. Yeah, that's a really good experience.”

The stampede returns

Thousands of people gather together, the sun beating down their backs. The stadium roars as the student section chants, "We want Ralphie." Last year, fans cheered from their couches.

This year, the stampede returned to Folsom Field.

For fifth year transfer student, Dylan Jacob, stepping onto Folsom Field was an experience.

Jacob transferred to CU during the 2020-21 season from a Division II school in Western Colorado. During the 2020-21 season only approved media and select family members were allowed in the stadium. The remaining thousands of seats sat empty with some occupied with cardboard cutouts.

"Expecting a division one school stadiums are gonna be packed and then you run out for the first game, and there's no one out there. It was just kind of an eerie feeling of just having fake noise. It almost felt like every single time you went out on a field like it was kind of like a scrimmage or something like it wasn't real life," said Jacob.

Jacob was able to see Folsom Field at full capacity this year.

"It was awesome. I remember my first game. It was almost sold out against UNC and I had goosebumps and Ralphie was running out. It was just a surreal feeling," said Jacob. "It was like everything was back [and] we're pretty much back to normal. It's a great atmosphere."

Being back to "normal" meant many things for the football team. One of them meaning not getting COVID tested on a daily basis. Leading up to games and practices players needed to provide a negative COVID test. Many players were put up in hotels to self-isolate during the season.

On game days at Folsom, nothing changed in their routine. All of the players were able to be in the locker room together, but at different stadiums across the Western United States it looked different.

"Usually visiting locker rooms are smaller and because of COVID needing to socially distance. At Stanford they pretty much had to use a big event tent with chairs and stuff as the locker room to space everything out," said Jacob. "So, you still had to get the negative [COVID] test at the hotel in the morning before the game, and then you go up and each Stadium was kind of different. They try to space you out as much as possible. It was kind of weird just all the things you had to do before the game when you're trying to prepare."

Jacob transferred to CU in the height of the pandemic, summer 2020. Coming into CU he barely knew anyone in his classes or on the football team. As the season progressed he made friends with his teammates, but online school impacted his mental health.

"I would definitely go stir crazy. It'd be awesome going to the facility to go to practice and workouts because you're around the guys," said Jacob. "Then you go home for class and you're sitting on your computer in your apartment for three, four hours a day, not really talking to anybody. It's just kind of like, the days get so long, you're not able to experience walking around campus. I had never seen seen campus as a student. So this is my first year and I'm just stuck in an apartment, listening to class and doing homework in an apartment all day. So definitely took a toll."

On days when he felt extremely isolated Jacob said he was "glad to have football."

As the 2021 football season comes to a close, Jacob was grateful to experience the stampede of Boulder fans in all of their glory. The past season, Jacob managed the football team instead of playing. Even though he wasn't participating the actual game it was still surreal to be down in front of the fans.

"You kind of had to sit back and stand there," said Jacob. "Even though it wasn't a uniform. You just sit back like, 'Wow I'm here. I'm in this moment' and I just kind of get enjoy at this point. It was definitely a surreal experience."