Throughout the last six months, our daily plans have taken a heavy turn around in one way or another, and it’s clear that we’ve had to make adjustments that we’re not quite accustomed to.

At NECC, all classes are remote for this fall semester, and teachers and students have been forced to be in a situation where they thought they wouldn’t be in 12 months ago, wherecommunication and questions aren’t as straight-forward as before.

The effect COVID has had on people has affected people both positively and negatively.

Sports is an example of this, where interaction is key for their roles as coaches and athletes.

Coaches atNECC have had their fair share on this new experience.

“Remote learning has been extremely difficult for me to navigate. It is much more difficult tocorrect errors, mechanics and see how they perform during a training session,” says Nelson Desilvestre, Head Track Coach of NECC.

“It has become more imperative that the athletes train on their own. They need to have themotivation to do the workouts without the structure of an organized practice. This makes itdifficult for me to evaluate and teach the athletes.It is much more difficult to correct errors, mechanics and see how they perform during a trainingsession. All in all, it has been frustrating and not nearly as fun as it used to be.”

These COVID regulations has been a roller coaster ride for hard-working coaches nationwide,and Desilvestre has been unfortunate to be on the receiving end of these COVID problems.

“COVID has caused many distractions and cancellations. We now are at a standstill not knowing what is coming next. That creates problems in motivation and setting goals because there is nodate to work towards and be ready to compete.”

Although the pandemic has been a sad reality for the majority of coaches, this isn’t the case at allfor all coaches.

“From an esports coach’s perspective, I believe COVID-19 and remote learning have made mycoaching experience easier overall.” claims David Arivella, Head Esports Coach at NECC.

“I had already been managing our esports players in an online environment using Discord in thepast. Students are now more likely to be on their computers doing classwork so I can easily reachthem all throughout the day.”