IC’s Eldridge details challenges of coaching in pandemic

Just about two months ago, Garret Eldridge was promoted from assistant coach to head coach for the Ithaca College men’s soccer team. Since then, it’s been all about making a smooth transition in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic before the athletic season begins in late September.

Unlike a few other collegiate athletic conferences, the Liberty League, which Ithaca College is a member of, announced that it will have a fall sports season rather than an outright cancellation. The necessary changes include a delayed start and a schedule that consists only of in-conference opponents.

The conference’s announcement gave Eldridge a date to look forward to, Sept. 26, to begin his tenure as the head coach of the men’s soccer program. He detailed what the experience has been like thus far as he attempts to plan out his approach for what will be a unique season.

“Now we can kind of start the planning for preseason and what the season will look like,” Eldridge said. “But in terms of the day-to-day, a lot of recruiting, and it’s coming down to a lot of game film of players that haven’t played live games in five months. I certainly think it’ll probably be the toughest year that anyone’s had to really go through in terms of finalizing a class.”

Eldridge added that a key to successful recruiting for the upcoming was to start early in the process. Given that he was already on the coaching staff last year, that was an advantage for him as opposed to him being hired by a brand-new team this year.

“We were really lucky in terms of being so ahead on our 2020 class here that we were able to start looking at 2021 very, very early in the process,” Eldridge said. “That allowed us to create a database of 2021 [recruits] that we really liked. Now, we’re just finalizing the players that we really want to offer spots to and having them hopefully join us during that 2021 year.”

The process is still the same for Eldridge with a lot of phone calls and texts to potential players. The main difference is not being able to see them play live soccer before they arrive at Ithaca College. The essential face-to-face contact was not there either.

“It certainly is different,” Eldridge said. “A lot of those players have only visited campus one time instead of visiting multiple times taking overnight visits. All those things that are quite normal in the recruiting process that right now are obviously a little bit up in the air. We’ve been very lucky in terms of being able to get out to a lot of tournaments early on.”

That definitely isn’t the case for a lot of teams around the country. Eldridge has heard just that from some of his peers in coaching.

“It’s the most difficult thing I think any coach has gone through,” Eldridge said. “I’ve got a lot of friends in the game that have been in it 25 years. This is certainly a concern if you haven’t seen enough players to really get your class in order.”

There’s certainly more to coaching than recruiting for the future and Eldridge will have a returning class from one of the best IC men’s soccer teams in recent history. He discussed motivating those players who will be coming back.

“We’ve really concentrated on each and every day, getting better,” Eldridge said. “In terms of what we’re doing in terms of our motivation, we’ve stayed the course and when we’ve had that sort of mentality, we’ve been able to have a ton of success. So we’ll continue focusing on each and every day, and hopefully, that will continue to bring the program a lot of success.”

When he does finally get to meet his team in person, he expects a lot of energy to radiate across the field. Athletes everywhere are feeling that same type of anxiousness as fall sports approach following a summer with minimal activity.

“I’m overjoyed to be able to coach these guys and to be able to get back out on the field very soon,” Eldridge said. “The Liberty League has done an awesome job going through the process and making sure that the return play is safe. I’m ecstatic to get back out there with the guys. I know that all of our guys when they heard the news a few days ago that we’d be starting in late September were overjoyed to be able to get back out and play.”

The conference’s health and safety protocols are still in development, but for now, what truly matters is that there will be soccer on the South Hill this year. After bringing in a solid recruiting class that includes Trumansburg standout Conor Baird, expectations are high for the Bombers after their first victory in an NCAA Tournament game since 2002.