On the University of St. Francis men’s golf website, results can be found from four tournaments in the fall of 2019.
Next to the six tournaments scheduled for this spring, however, it says “canceled.”
As one of two seniors on the roster, Seymour native Brady Marshall won’t get to play his final season of collegiate golf.
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The coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic forced colleges to cancel winter and spring sports competitions and switch to online classes for the remainder of the semester.
“We started out on a three-week delay that was mandated by our athletic conference, the Crossroads League. This would have eliminated only our first two tournaments,” Marshall said.
“About a week after that, Monday the 16th, a decision was made. The NAIA, our governing body, made the decision to end the season for spring sports,” he said. “Later that day, USF announced that classes would remain online for the rest of the semester.”
Marshall said he was on his way back to Fort Wayne when he received the news.
“Of course, I was disappointed with the news, but it’s important to understand the bigger picture of this whole situation,” he said. “It’s bigger than me. It’s bigger than sports. It’s a global emergency.”
Marshall said he and his teammates had workouts and indoor practices five days a week after Christmas break to prepare for the spring season.
He had high expectations for himself and the team.
“I had the expectation to have a good spring season as my closeout. We have quite a few young guys underneath me that I intended to set a good example for on and off the course,” he said.
“I had a lot of team goals for the season,” he said. “For the first time in my time at USF, there wasn’t a clear front-runner for the conference tournament like in years past. We had beaten every team at least once in our fall season and had a lot of confidence going into the short spring season.”
Marshall said the NAIA has provided all athletes with an extra year of eligibility if they choose to pursue it, but he is set to finish his studies in May.
The upside of the season being canceled and taking classes online is he can finish the semester on his own time.
“It also has provided me with a nice break in an extremely busy schedule that I had balanced the last four years,” he said.
Marshall had taken a couple of online classes during the course of his career, but it’s different now taking all of them online.
“It’s a lot harder to find the motivation needed when you aren’t on a complete set time schedule,” he said. “I’m an accounting major, so I’ve been required to take 18 credit hours every semester of my college career, completing a five-year degree in four at the completion of these last six weeks.”
Since the Fort Wayne campus and the indoor golf facility he works at are closed, he is doing his coursework from home in Seymour.
“I may end up going back up to my rental house if the facility is to reopen,” he said.
As of now, graduation at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum is considered postponed pending a further announcement, Marshall said.
“I have heard some places might offer graduates a chance to participate in a December ceremony. I don’t know if that’s the case at USF if graduation winds up being canceled,” he said. “The important thing is that I will still get my degree at the expected time. The ceremony is important, don’t get me wrong, but I went to college for a degree, which I will still be coming out with.”
Completing a five-year degree in four years has provided Marshall the 150 credits he needs to sit for the certified public accountant exam in the future. Last fall, he accepted a position at K·Coe Isom, a public accounting firm in Carmel.
Even though he can’t complete his final collegiate golf season, he said he will still get out on the course when he can.
“Of course, the great thing about golf is I will be able to play my sport for the rest of my life, which is something not many athletes can say,” he said. “I’ll always be playing and striving to improve my game.”
He also shared advice to others about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“We have no control over it. Don’t panic and have a good attitude toward it,” he said. “There’s no reason to be mad or upset about a situation that you can’t change.”