Wolfpack Athletes Safe At Home (And Away) During Lockdown

NC State athletes Angie Rizzi and Ibrahim Kante are both New York natives. One is stuck at home during the coronavirus crisis while the other can't go home. Here's how they're dealing with the hardships created by the lockdown

People all across the country, including those here in North Carolina, are starting to get antsy as we head into the third month of stay-at-home restrictions brought about by COVID-19.

Angie Rizzi is the opposite.

She'd do anything to be able to go home. But because her family lives in New York, the hottest hot spot of the coronavirus crisis, she's unable to do so.

"Obviously I can't go home because I'm from New York," said Rizzi, a senior outfielder from Long Island who has decided to use her NCAA waiver to return next year. "Luckly, I have a teammates who lives in South Carolina nice enough to take me in. So I've been here for over a month."

While Rizzi has been a stranger in exile in a strange land while riding out the pandemic at the home of junior infielder Logan Morris in Camden, S.C., Wolfpack football player Ibrahim Kante is in the opposite situation.

Because his sport is out of season, the junior defensive end drove back home to New York on March 7 to spend spring break with family and friends before returning to Raleigh to continue spring practice.

But those plans changed quickly when Mayor Bill DiBlasio declared a state of emergency in the city and virtually everthing in New York was shut down. 

Now he's confined to his family's apartment in Harlem. And on those rare occasions when he does venture outside, he does so wearing a gloves, a mask and a head covering.

As our #Pack is scattered right now, @IbrahimKante14 is sheltered in place where the virus has hit the hardest: New York City.

⬇️ Check out the story of his last few weekshttps://t.co/Qm8jFU8MYO

— NC State Football (@PackFootball) April 10, 2020

“It seems like you’re in a movie,” Kante told GoPack.com. “There was only one laundromat open so there were a lot of people there. But everybody is wearing masks and gloves and nobody is talking. Everybody is afraid right now.

“We aren’t allowed to go out of the house. Everything is closed and you can only go somewhere if it’s essential to your life.”

Kante is doing what he can to stay in shape, by doing virtual workouts on Zoom with his high school teammates and coach three times a week. He also does workouts on his own with his brother.

“We can’t run or anything, so most of what we are doing is jump training," he said. "But since we live on the fourth floor, I have to restrict myself on that. The neighbors know I play football and have to train, but I don’t want to disturb them too much.”

Rizzi, meanwhile, has also had to improvise. But in a very different way.

"Being down South, you do some weird stuff," she said. "So she planted her garden and I guess she needed sun for her garden. So we cut cown a tree and were lifting limbs and branches, doing curls and push presses with branches from a free that weighed a good amount. It's fun.

"You still get a good workout in, but you have to improvise somehow. You can't just sit around."

Rizzi has no idea when she'll be able to go home again now that the softball season and school year are over while Kante still isn't sure there will be a football season this fall.

In the meantime, both are doing what they can to make the best of the situation.

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