Colorado State University Athletics
Time Away Has Rams Revved Up to Go
10/16/2020 9:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball, RamWire
Medved's group ready to practice with purpose
Most of the building is empty, but on many random nights, if you saunter by the doors at Moby Arena you'll hear the sounds.
The bounce of the ball. The swish of the net. When a shot feels off, basketball players return to do the work when nobody is watching. Get the feel back. Find a rhythm.
But what is a gym rat to do when the doors are locked?
During the early stages of the pandemic, when student-athletes shuffled back home, many of them found their old stomping grounds were off limits. Sometimes that meant the local park with the nets made of metal as cities looked to keep large crowds from gathering. As time passed, doors started to open and so did parks.
But sometimes, the skies did, too.
"In Illinois, I had a park," Colorado State guard Kendle Moore said. "I'm not going to lie; the weather wasn't as good, so obviously every day you couldn't get shots up. But every day, you could do a little bit of something."
He figures only two or three times when he was home did his mom tell him to stop dribbling the basketball around the house. There have to be some quiet hours, you know?
It players differently. In Nebraska, John Tonje had no worries at all. He could get into gyms or go to the park, and he had a place to lift and a track to run on. There, it was no big deal. But CSU head coach Niko Medved realized some of his players were finding road blocks in their pursuit of work, creating some "foul moods." So in true coaching fashion, he implored them to get creative in finding ways to work on that mood, and he knew sometimes that was going to mean putting the ball down and bonding with the family.
There's only so many dribbles in a day. Video games get old, too.
"Every one of these guys had a little different situation," Medved said. "They were all at home, and what we were doing was virtual. It's funny, you have all the stuff that's taken, but you find your way. You have no choice.
"There were days when we'd do their team meetings, what's something you've had a chance to do through this that you've really enjoyed that you would not have had a chance to do if this not happened?" Medved said. "We tried to look at it more, hey, there are opportunities in all adversity. It was interesting to hear a lot of these guys, and a lot of them I think really enjoyed having that intentional time to spend more time with their family."
Medved knows Adam Thistlewood spent a lot of the time with his mom gardening. And he liked it.
Tonje's dad brought home a pet, so he made a new friend. Just having been away from home the first time, he enjoyed the aspects of his life he missed at college.
"I got time to just be around my family, be around my closest friends," he said. "My dad brought home a new dog, so I was playing with the dog. I really had fun, despite everything that was going on. I had a close circle I was bonding with the whole time, so it was good."
Moore considers himself a good cook. And if he was having a dinner party, he'd serve you cheesy mashed potatoes, shrimp, steak and Caesar salad – what he calls his specialties. So he spent nearly every day with his mother and grandmother, and they cooked. A lot.
They also watched a bunch of movies, even if their taste in genres differ. So what? It was great.
"I'm more of action-adventure, they're more like romantic drama type," he said. "We were a little opposite, but at least we were together."
Now, too, is the team.
Wednesday marked the first day teams could practice, triggering them from a 12-hour week to 20. Medved gave them the day off, however, considering the team has already been practicing. Thursday then became the first "official" practice, and everybody was ready for it.
Those sessions when the team returned helped make sure there wasn't rust to shake off on the first day, and the realization games are on a schedule which once was in jeopardy – all the sudden the work comes with purpose.
A purpose they didn't really need. Medved said the time away created a desire already.
"It's something that's been gone. I've always felt like these days right now can be dog days, where you've been here since September with conditioning and workouts, and now transitioning into practice, your body feels tired and it's hard to look on the horizon," he said. "We've got games, but they're still six weeks away. You hope that you really take a step back and remember in the spring and the summer when I couldn't even get in the gym for a while to go shoot and do what I love."
This is a team brimming with potential and promise, but also carries questions which must be answered in practice. And those answers have to come in practice, because there will be no closed-gym scrimmages or exhibitions which don't count against the team.
When the ball tips for the first time, it will be for real. So too, then, must be the work in practice.
"There were things we missed out on the summer time, and we have to incorporate them in now," Moore said. "There is a lot of urgency, so we're trying to do everything so when it's time to play, we're 100 percent."
Because when the feeling hits to head to the gym, the players can't always do that. Everything is scheduled, based on protocols. Medved knows they are necessary, and besides, everybody is dealing with something. Some worse than what his team faces.
They had time away where they missed out on things. They also found ways to fill the gaps, many leading to joys they had forgotten. In both instances -- the here and now and the back when -- value has to be found.
"It helped. The whole time, this is where I want to be, on campus, but we weren't able to," Tonje said. "I found ways to keep my mind off of it and make the most out of what I had."
Besides, a gym rat will always find an opening to satisfy the hunger. It can't always been a full meal, but a taste is sometimes all they need to get through the day.
The bounce of the ball. The swish of the net. When a shot feels off, basketball players return to do the work when nobody is watching. Get the feel back. Find a rhythm.
But what is a gym rat to do when the doors are locked?
During the early stages of the pandemic, when student-athletes shuffled back home, many of them found their old stomping grounds were off limits. Sometimes that meant the local park with the nets made of metal as cities looked to keep large crowds from gathering. As time passed, doors started to open and so did parks.
But sometimes, the skies did, too.
"In Illinois, I had a park," Colorado State guard Kendle Moore said. "I'm not going to lie; the weather wasn't as good, so obviously every day you couldn't get shots up. But every day, you could do a little bit of something."
He figures only two or three times when he was home did his mom tell him to stop dribbling the basketball around the house. There have to be some quiet hours, you know?
It players differently. In Nebraska, John Tonje had no worries at all. He could get into gyms or go to the park, and he had a place to lift and a track to run on. There, it was no big deal. But CSU head coach Niko Medved realized some of his players were finding road blocks in their pursuit of work, creating some "foul moods." So in true coaching fashion, he implored them to get creative in finding ways to work on that mood, and he knew sometimes that was going to mean putting the ball down and bonding with the family.
There's only so many dribbles in a day. Video games get old, too.
"Every one of these guys had a little different situation," Medved said. "They were all at home, and what we were doing was virtual. It's funny, you have all the stuff that's taken, but you find your way. You have no choice.
"There were days when we'd do their team meetings, what's something you've had a chance to do through this that you've really enjoyed that you would not have had a chance to do if this not happened?" Medved said. "We tried to look at it more, hey, there are opportunities in all adversity. It was interesting to hear a lot of these guys, and a lot of them I think really enjoyed having that intentional time to spend more time with their family."
Medved knows Adam Thistlewood spent a lot of the time with his mom gardening. And he liked it.
Tonje's dad brought home a pet, so he made a new friend. Just having been away from home the first time, he enjoyed the aspects of his life he missed at college.
"I got time to just be around my family, be around my closest friends," he said. "My dad brought home a new dog, so I was playing with the dog. I really had fun, despite everything that was going on. I had a close circle I was bonding with the whole time, so it was good."
Moore considers himself a good cook. And if he was having a dinner party, he'd serve you cheesy mashed potatoes, shrimp, steak and Caesar salad – what he calls his specialties. So he spent nearly every day with his mother and grandmother, and they cooked. A lot.
They also watched a bunch of movies, even if their taste in genres differ. So what? It was great.
"I'm more of action-adventure, they're more like romantic drama type," he said. "We were a little opposite, but at least we were together."
Now, too, is the team.
Wednesday marked the first day teams could practice, triggering them from a 12-hour week to 20. Medved gave them the day off, however, considering the team has already been practicing. Thursday then became the first "official" practice, and everybody was ready for it.
Those sessions when the team returned helped make sure there wasn't rust to shake off on the first day, and the realization games are on a schedule which once was in jeopardy – all the sudden the work comes with purpose.
A purpose they didn't really need. Medved said the time away created a desire already.
"It's something that's been gone. I've always felt like these days right now can be dog days, where you've been here since September with conditioning and workouts, and now transitioning into practice, your body feels tired and it's hard to look on the horizon," he said. "We've got games, but they're still six weeks away. You hope that you really take a step back and remember in the spring and the summer when I couldn't even get in the gym for a while to go shoot and do what I love."
This is a team brimming with potential and promise, but also carries questions which must be answered in practice. And those answers have to come in practice, because there will be no closed-gym scrimmages or exhibitions which don't count against the team.
When the ball tips for the first time, it will be for real. So too, then, must be the work in practice.
"There were things we missed out on the summer time, and we have to incorporate them in now," Moore said. "There is a lot of urgency, so we're trying to do everything so when it's time to play, we're 100 percent."
Because when the feeling hits to head to the gym, the players can't always do that. Everything is scheduled, based on protocols. Medved knows they are necessary, and besides, everybody is dealing with something. Some worse than what his team faces.
They had time away where they missed out on things. They also found ways to fill the gaps, many leading to joys they had forgotten. In both instances -- the here and now and the back when -- value has to be found.
"It helped. The whole time, this is where I want to be, on campus, but we weren't able to," Tonje said. "I found ways to keep my mind off of it and make the most out of what I had."
Besides, a gym rat will always find an opening to satisfy the hunger. It can't always been a full meal, but a taste is sometimes all they need to get through the day.
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