Sandbags to Stealing Bags: How Alabama Baseball Overcame a Gym-Less Society during the Pandemic
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — One of the key worries of college coaches across America at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was the task of keeping their players in shape while being forced to stay at home.
With gyms and parks everywhere shut down and with players having no access to the team’s facilities, a common concern was that athletes would fall out of shape and would be vastly unprepared when the next season began.
For Alabama baseball, it seems that the worry went by unwarranted.
Speaking to the media following the conclusion of the Crimson Tide’s fall practice sessions, head coach Brad Bohannon praised the efforts from his players and staff during a pandemic that threw a lot of problems towards his team during the extended offseason.
“Our kids did awesome,” Bohannon said. “Our kids did awesome during the pandemic and the kids are the ones that did the work so they deserve the most credit but I can’t say enough about Brett Price. I can’t imagine that there’s a better strength and conditioning coach in college baseball. I’m telling you Brett was FaceTiming our players and saying ‘Hey, go into your garage and let me see, do you have any buckets? Do you have any gravel? You have any sand?’ Just making stuff up for 35 guys. We did all the Zooms, we did all the calling and texting and I was anxious in the first team meeting.”
After a tremendous 16-1 start to the season that saw the Crimson Tide on top of the SEC West, the season was cut short just hours before Bohannon and Alabama were to face its first conference opponent in Missouri.
Instead of travelling to Sewell-Thomas Stadium, the players found themselves travelling home with no idea what was to come next. As days turned into weeks, the team saw the season be officially cancelled. A 16-1 start ultimately turned out to mean nothing, and the team’s eyes were then turned to the next season.
With gyms, ballparks and other facilities closed, players had to resort to at-home workouts. While not nearly as efficient as workouts conducted under the supervision of a coach, and with many players not having workout equipment of their own at home, Bohannon and Price were faced with a problem.
The solution? Old-school means of strength and conditioning. Price soon sent out a list of workouts that players could do at home, with or without gym equipment. Sand bags, cinder blocks, gravel — anything with any sort of weight that could be used was implemented.
The results seemed to speak for themselves.
Bohannon, in his usual playful manner, stated that he was initially worried that his players would be out of shape when they arrived for fall practices. Instead, he said he was impressed.
“I just figured that there were going to be three guys that looked like they’d eaten a 12-year-old because I know at my house during the pandemic there was this force that every time I walked by the pantry this force would just draw me in and you just gotta see what’s going on in there and there’s always something good going on in a pantry,” Bohannon joked. “I mean, the rate we went through Cheez-Its at my house late spring, early summer was just quite remarkable. I just figured that we’d have a few guys on the team that had the same experiences that I did but in all seriousness they did fabulous.”
Now that facilities have reopened and fall practices have come and gone, the team shifts its focus to the upcoming season. While no formal schedule is announced — nor is one expected anytime soon according to Bohannon — the team now has to channel its energy from an offseason filled with adversity to overcoming even more obstacles on the road ahead.
Bohannon was quick to compliment his team for its hard work so far but said that now it has to adjust from dominating practice to dominating play on the diamond in a real-game scenario.
“These guys, I mean we really have just an outstanding group of kids that are very serious about being good at baseball,” Bohannon said. “We have a lot of kids that want the team to win but they also want to be really good draft picks and are very diligent in the way that they work, way that they train so I cannot compliment our group enough for the way that they attacked their time and hunger during the pandemic.
“Now we have to go from being really good at training and practicing to being really good at winning the game and they’re very, very inclusive. Being good at training and practicing has a large impact at being good at playing the game [but] it’s just not quite the same so we got to get good at winning the game.”
Due to the NCAA granting players an additional year of eligibility thanks to the pandemic, the Crimson Tide’s roster is deeper than ever. That being said, so are the rosters of all other teams across the country. Alabama is fielding 35 players, but only two are seniors and two are juniors. In general, the Crimson Tide is fielding a young team with not a lot of SEC experience due to the sudden and abrupt end of the 2020 season.
That being said, Alabama does return a lot of talent on its young roster. Freshman outfielder Owen Diodati, who led the team in RBIs with 22 and finished second on the team in home runs with five, is slated to return. Pitchers Tyler Ras, Connor Prielipp, Antoine Jean and Dylan Smith are all also set to return to the mound in 2021.
While the team lost some of its heavy-hitters in Brett Auerbach, Tyler Gentry, Kolby Robinson, Garrett Rukes and Casey Cobb, the amount of young talent that is emerging on the roster could very well compensate for its lack of returning veterans.
However, there is no substitute for experience.
“In a year where college baseball is going to be as good as it’s ever been and as old as it’s ever been we’re going to be really young,” Bohannon said. “We’ve got 20 freshmen on our team, we’ve got two juniors and two seniors and anybody that’s associated with our league in any way, shape or form will tell you that there’s just no substitute for SEC experience and I think the longer that I’ve been in the league the bigger the gap has gotten from you’re non-league and midweek to your SEC stuff. The league is just going to be as good as it’s ever been and then we have a lot of good players.
“We have a really good team but we gotta quit making the same mistakes in November that we’re making in September and if we do that in March when you’ve got an SEC West team in the other dugout then we’re going to be disappointed.”
