COVID came at us like a tidal wave last March, crashing on our shores, disrupting life, school, and our beloved sports. Seasons were canceled, leagues put on hold, bubbles were lived in, and teams ceased to exist, nothing was normal. It seemed like COVID continued to take from us as bad news came on the waves of social media feeds. I had to take time off my Facebook to catch my breath as my anxiety increased. I knew nothing would be the same. We are still waiting for the waters to recede to see what structures soundly built will remain and what we can build from the debris.

One of my favorite childhood vacation memories was walking on the beach looking for beach glass, shards of glass that have been smoothed over by time in the water. They looked like colorful pebbles. The pressure and elements turned something that should have been sharp trash into something delightful to collect. COVID put that same pressure on teams around the world to give in to the environment or become something beautiful. As I look at the soccer landscape I see positive change. Leagues are starting back up and teams are evaluating their state since COVID.

I checked in with FC Austin Elite General Manager Danny Woodfill to see how COVID affected their team. “It was a rebuilding year for us. It was going to be a little crazy anyway. We were unaffected early on (as COVID made its way eventually to Texas). We were able to observe and make plans. We have a female Medical Director, Dr. Martha Pyron of Medicine in Motion in Austin, Texas, which is unique for a women’s team, who set up COVID protocol for us so we could get into playing safely.”

Dr. Pyron was in charge of creating the protocol for practices, games, and the possible national tournament. It was not a simple task, with many risk factors involved. Dr. Pyron’s priority was, “Safety first. The biggest priority was eliminating risk of exposure. We simply couldn’t have a player end up dying because of carelessness. We couldn’t of course eliminate every possible exposure (the field time for example), but we did the best we could to control all other factors so that those on the field had less of a chance of knowingly having the virus.”

Elite desired to play soccer. They continued to play with a clearly established process that allowed them to play until August. Elite had practice twice a week with a longer check-in and more rules. Outdoor practice is much safer. They split the teams into groups, each group had a max of 15-20 players assigned to the group. Not all players in each group showed up to every practice. This way they could have 60-80 players training. Groups were never comingled. If you were in group A you stayed in group A and never practiced with group B or C.

Driving interest in the club through merch on social media was a big winner for the club in 2020. This is the “Inclusion" Kit, a fan favorite.

With this process of their modified bubble, they had zero transmission. Dr. Pryon attributes this success to the team attitude, “The team general management and coaching staff as well as the players were very compliant with the plan and if that had not been the case, we would have had a problem I am convinced.” Implementing these critical safety guidelines allowed this dedicated team to keep playing games. They hosted five non-league games. The visiting teams had to abide by Elite’s COVID protocol, quarantining leading up to the game included. Dr. Pyron gets more specific on the policy she implemented, “in the regular season this meant just working with the field management. Sometimes we had to add more of our people to prepare to do things that the field management team wasn’t prepared to do: such as monitoring the restroom traffic and cleaning the guardrails at the stands (that could be touched by players). And limit the number of fields in play at one time. We had little control over this. Guarding off bystanders (we did so with ropes) so they couldn’t access the fields we were using.”

Woodfill pitched hosting a National Cup tournament in June in Austin, Texas to UWS, and began to plan for it. Dr. Pyron began to create plans they shared with the United Women’s Soccer organization, “The fields, flights, dorms, food delivery, etc. made the tournament discussions complex. But with everyone willing to do their part, we came up with some good plans.” Then COVID numbers began to spike in Texas and it was canceled. They learned what it would take to host a national tournament, they remained positive as they went through this dress rehearsal. A path was now established to bring a national tournament to their area. Who knows what we will see in the coming years.

Prior to COVID, Elite were pursuing paths to play women’s soccer year-round. Most men’s leagues are set up in a Fall and Spring format, but women’s’ leagues are Summer only. Elite also has a reserve team in the Austin Women’s Soccer League. This team will take anyone who wants to play with any skill level, it is fully rec. This is a fun team and doesn’t have the same coaching level as the other three teams (Elite, u-23, and u-20). The focus of this team is to provide a path for local players who want to play on a competitive team to continue to play once the regular UWS summer season is complete.

Early in COVID people emerged from their bubble to start reconnecting on social media, providing the missing social piece. Slowly, soccer started to fill my feed with workouts and challenges. FC Austin Elite was able to ride the wave through these challenging times and harness the situation, remaining positive when they could have written the season off. With more free time on their hands, the staff took to social media and increased their already active presence. Woodfill was on podcasts, participated in a jersey competition, created a Women’s Soccer specific YouTube channel (@Elitesoccernetwork). It was their perspective that was different. Seeing the already tense feed they decided to bring some brightness. Woodfill says, “As we see lack of information, we decided to spread positive information. We wanted to help teams get off the ground and be established. Keep teams from only having one season.” Woodfill reached out using social media then had discussions with other teams working to increase their longevity.

Danny and two FC Austin Elite players during a media appearance.

As a result of COVID, sponsors across the nation are changing their give, affecting teams in a critical way. Many women’s teams want to provide the opportunity for players to play professionally at little to no cost. These costs begin to add up, home and away kits, warm-ups, practice tops, bags, travel, field fees, etc. Sponsors allow semi-pro players to be able to afford to continue playing after high school. Youth soccer has the ability to charge players, sometimes in the thousands, to cover these costs. Elite was able to fulfill their agreements with their current sponsors and didn’t have to give back any sponsorship money. On their position, Woodfill shared, “We worked hard to make sure all of the promises were kept and no one asked for refunds.”

Woodfill and Dr. Pyron look towards the upcoming season with changes to the current protocol. Dr. Pyron proposes that, “As we go into another year, we now have the vaccine available (to some). I think having everyone vaccinated will also help improve safety. So this will be added in our mitigation steps as it is available to the public.” COVID protocols at the state and national level are being updated regularly and the steps to maintain the health of the players needs to be updated concurrently as well. Positively looking at the future to prepare for next steps will keep FC Austin Elite ready and playing.

FC Austin Elite didn’t just survive the pandemic wave - they rode it out and thrived. COVID was a chance to continue building, developing their program. Elite didn’t see COVID as a destructive force, they used it to learn and grow. Woodfill contemplated, “This time cleared up ideas and plans. We are a stronger team and organization. We want to be a leader in women’s soccer and be responsible and focus on the right elements.”

- Danielle Gawronski