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My Experience with COVID-19:

                   An Idaho State Athletes Perspective 

April 2020

By Natalie Christensen, RDN, CSSD, LD, Sports Dietitian
and Beth Hickey, SCORE Career Path Intern

What is this quarantine like for Division 1 athletes at Idaho State?  Spring competition seasons have been cancelled.  Athletes have been encouraged to go home and complete classes online.  This might have happened smoothly for some, but presented as a huge challenge for many of our athletes from in and out of the country.

Bethany Hickey, track and cross country runner at Idaho State, is from Australia.  She had decided she couldn’t go home.  There were no flights available at first, then there were flights at extreme prices, then there was the looming question of whether or not she could make it back for her Fall season if she left.  Should she go or should she stay?

Bethany shares her story and her thoughts on the whole ordeal:  “I’m amazed at how quickly everyone was to adapt to the challenging circumstances of COVID-19.  As an international student-athlete on the cross-country team, adapting meant returning home to Australia a lot sooner than I originally planned or wanted.  I was optimistic that I would be able to fly home in May for Summer with the ticket I had already booked.

Unfortunately, just two days into spring break the Australian Government announced it was cancelling international flights in a week’s time, so if I wanted to come home at all I needed to book a ticket now. That led to a lot of swinging back and forth on the decision to come home or not, but ended after lots of stress and booking a flight for 5 day’s time. It was a relief just to have made a decision. For the next 5 days I packed, cleaned, met with coaches, and said goodbye to the special people I was going to miss. Those few days before leaving were a lot of fun, trying to do things knew I wouldn’t be able to do for a while.

“With all the restrictions in place here at home, getting outside to run or walk our dogs on the beach is definitely the day’s highlights and I can’t complain of having nothing to do when there is always schoolwork to be done. The days have blurred together quite a bit, but things haven’t been as bad as I thought. I am lucky to live in a small, quiet town, still have access to our beaches and have warm sunny weather each day. The longer this all drags out the more excited I get for when we can see friends again, go to all our favorite places and have life back to normal.”