In an empty movie theater parking lot an hour and a half into a five-hour bus ride to the University of Delaware, the University of Rhode Island baseball team awaited word from their coaches on if they were going to play. There were jokes. There were smiles. There was sleeping. There was also apprehension. 

A few minutes later, the coaches boarded the bus and informed the players of something a few had already figured out: they weren’t going to be playing. Not just that night, but for the rest of the season. A professor at the University of Delaware had tested positive for COVID-19, so the university was shutting down the campus. On the bus ride back to Rhode Island, the smiles and jokes and sleeping resumed, but the apprehension turned to fear. And for a few, the warm, reassuring hand that was and had always been baseball was slipping from their grasp. 

Sonny Ulliana was one of those few. The senior catcher from Hackensack, New Jersey — a place famous for being close to New York City — sat on the bus and pulled out his phone. He opened Twitter and turned on his notifications for just a few accounts: the Atlantic 10 Conference, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the NCAA Baseball accounts. He wanted to know the instant it happened — the instant his baseball career was over. 

A few hours after a batting practice that Ulliana said was one of the most fun of his career, his phone buzzed. The inevitable had come. Baseball, and all other spring sports across the NCAA, was canceled. Ulliana’s career was over, not with a bang but a whimper.

While the virus might represent one season lost and a paycheck missed to professional athletes, the impact for college athletes, specifically graduating seniors, can be much greater. For those college seniors who missed their spring season due to the rapid spread of COVID-19, that last missed season possibly represented the last chance to do something they love– the last chance to be great.

… 

On Wednesday, March 11, 2020, the NBA’s Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder prepared to play a basketball game. The players were warming up, shooting free throws, throwing down pregame dunks, stretching, and getting ready any way they knew how. However, just before tipoff, both teams left the floor, and referees were informed by league officials that the game was being delayed, at that time for an unknown reason. An announcement echoed around the arena, finding the ears of confused fans: the game was canceled. Jazz center Rudy Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19. It marked the beginning of the end for Ulliana and many others in the sporting world.

In the following days, the National Basketball Association paused their season. The National Hockey League did the same. Major League Baseball postponed its starting date. The NCAA and its conferences started canceling winter sports. Eventually, the NCAA canceled its spring seasons as well. Athletes in baseball, softball, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, and men’s volleyball lost a season. 

For seniors like Ulliana, careers ended without closure, without the one last title chance, without that last season that gets you noticed by scouts, without the chance to be great at something. The season ended with questions unanswered. 

On March 30, just under three weeks since Gobert had tested positive and pretty much every collegiate and professional sport across the country was put on hold, the NCAA granted spring sport athletes an extra year of eligibility. For Ulliana the choice was an easy one. 

“It was always if I get one more year, I’m coming back,” he said. 

…

As the COVID-19 pandemic dragged on, the NCAA had to face another decision: how would it handle the coming fall sports? On August 21, the NCAA announced that it would push fall championships into the spring with hopes that the sports could continue. Fall sport athletes, like spring sport athletes, were also granted an extra year of eligibility. Unlike Ulliana, the decision to return for another year for some senior athletes like Rachael Fara, a women’s volleyball player at the University of Colorado Boulder, remains a challenging one. 

Out of high school, Fara attended Northwestern University to pursue a major in biochemistry and biophysics. She graduated early from Northwestern and transferred to Dayton, where she did her graduate work in chemical engineering. After about a year and a half at Dayton, she transferred to CU Boulder to continue her chemical engineering work. Fara has never played a volleyball game for the Colorado Buffaloes, the team she now calls home. She might never step foot on the court for them. 

On the court, Fara never truly gained a strong foothold on the team at Northwestern. Despite a strong freshman season, her playtime wasn’t increased during her sophomore year. In her junior year, she barely suited up for the Wildcats, playing in only one game. She took a year off from volleyball before transferring to Dayton. With the Dayton Flyers, she played in 22 games — the most of her career. According to the school’s athletic department, she finished fourth on the team with 1.52 kills per set ratio (a kill in volleyball is when an attack from an opposing player is uncontrollable or unreturnable). 

Fara has been practicing with the Buffaloes but is not sure if she will ever suit up for CU. When it comes to returning next year, she remains uncertain.

“I am considering it. I’d be a fool not to,” said Fara. “But I also do need to consider plenty of other options as well. Whether that’s just focusing on studies, because it is hard to walk that sort of [on] the fence line between academics and athletics for so long, or just graduating, getting a job in industry or something else, I don’t know.”

Perhaps what is making this decision so hard is that Fara knows what it is like to leave. She has already left two schools, two teams and the sport of volleyball. 

“[E]ach time I left… I thought I was never going to be able to find another school again or be able to play again. So I’ve kind of been through that twice now. It just hurts so much because you love the sport so much. You love being around that team and being pushed and having new challenges every day. And there’s sort of a love journey sports take you through,” she reflected. 

Fara said that if she decided to walk away she would miss her teammates and coaches the most. That camaraderie has always brought her back to volleyball — at Northwestern, at Dayton, and now, at Colorado. It may not be enough this time. 

…

Ulliana can only remember loving baseball, saying, “My love and passion was for baseball. I’m a catcher. I became a catcher because I used to push kids over on the field when I was playing tee-ball because I wanted to be involved in every single play. My dad told me if you want to be involved in every play, you have to be either the pitcher or the catcher. So I said, ‘I want to catch.’ My dad bought me a set of equipment the next day.” 

Ulliana went on to catch throughout Little League and high school. He always dreamed of playing baseball in the South at Louisiana State University or Vanderbilt University. Those dreams never came to fruition. Ulliana only got one offer to play Division 1 baseball. He earned it when he hit a slow-rolling ground ball to the second baseman. Although the catcher is usually the slowest player on the team, that didn’t apply to Ulliana. He busted it up the line, trying to beat the throw. He was out, but the University of Rhode Island coaches were impressed. 

They invited him to a camp a few weeks later, and Ulliana impressed again. So much so that he got an offer to play for the Rhode Island Rams; an offer he accepted without ever visiting the campus. 

When the freshman walked onto campus, he had no expectations. He didn’t know how much he would play his first year, but he did know he wanted to go professional. So he was as shocked as anyone when his name appeared on the lineup card.

“[I]t was funny because I was the opening day starting catcher freshman year. Batting in the four-hole, I had no idea what was going on. I had no idea I was even playing that day….I looked up at [the lineup card] like, holy shit, I’m batting fourth and catching the first game of the year,” said Ulliana.

Ulliana was seemingly on top of the world. He was playing the most important defensive position as a freshman while hitting in one of the most important positions in the lineup. The next game, however, Ulliana tore his labrum sliding into first base. 

Because of an unusual rule in New Jersey high school baseball, catchers do not run the bases, but rather, after having reached base, will return to the dugout and start to put on the catcher’s gear while a pinch runner is brought in. Ulliana, being from New Jersey, was inexperienced on the bases, so when a pitcher threw over to first base to keep him from stealing, he dove back awkwardly and tore the cartilage in his shoulder. 

The injury prevented Ulliana from throwing, and thus, from playing catcher. For most, this injury would end a season, but for Ulliana, it just meant a change in role. Ulliana’s bat was too valuable to the Rhode Island lineup, so he became their designated hitter — someone who only hits for the team, often in place of the pitcher, and does not field. In this role, he notched a .250 batting average on 100 at-bats according to GoRhody.com. 

The next year, Ulliana returned to his catching position and improved his hitting to a .295 batting average. He slumped during his junior year, and his batting average dropped to .210. However, Sean O’Brien, the associate head coach at the University of Rhode Island and someone who deals with Ulliana every day, knows that Ulliana’s impact on the team is crucial. 

“He is reliable behind the plate. He has had success. He has been in the lineup. He has been one of the core group of guys,” said O’Brien.

To emphasize this point, he describes what might be Ulliana’s best moment as a Ram in a 2019 A-10 conference tournament game against Saint Louis. 

“He ended up getting hurt the last weekend of the regular season, so he was unavailable. He hurt his hamstring or knee. He ended up coming off the bench in the tenth inning and he couldn’t really run, but he hit a double down the line. It was a walk-off hit to keep us alive in the tournament,” said O’Brien. “If he hits a ground ball, he probably would not have been able to make it to first base, but ends up hitting the ball in the perfect spot and we won the game.”

Despite his heroics, Ulliana was not performing well enough to get drafted. In baseball, players have a few chances to become eligible for the MLB Draft. The first opportunity is right out of high school. The second is after a player’s junior season of baseball at a four-year university. Ulliana had always dreamed of going pro, but after a poor junior season, he knew he did not have a chance. So he bet big on his senior season. 

Now playing on the most talented Rhode Island team he has ever been on, Ulliana started poorly. In his first ten games, he hit only .167. Then, the season was canceled. Further compounding his problem was the fact that the MLB Draft was shortened from 40 rounds to five rounds due to the pandemic. He knew his career was over. 

“I was pretty lost about what I wanted to do, because when the season ended, I was like, shit, I don’t know what’s next. When I didn’t think I was going to get another year of eligibility, I was like I’m an adult now. I’m going to the real world. It’s over like that. I don’t know what the hell I want to do,” he said. 

Although Illiana had a degree in public relations and work experience in running the URI baseball team’s social media accounts, his only career aspiration was to go pro. Baseball truly was his life. 

“I mean, baseball, in general, is my life,” said Ulliana. “I don’t really know much else besides baseball.”

…

Ulliana will begin this season, perhaps his last, with a new sense of joy. He gets to play the game he loves again. He gets to savor each moment that was almost taken from him. Each practice. Each at-bat. Each pitch. This year is about appreciating baseball. 

“I’m just happier to be on the field now…. When I’m not in the batter’s box or catching, I’m just happy to be on the baseball field,” said Ulliana.

Ulliana, like Fara, told me he would miss the family aspect of baseball the most. 

“[B]aseball, it’s my other family. Like as cliche as that sounds, the people I met here– from the coaches to the last freshmen I’ve ever met, every single person on the team– I can generally say I love…. [s]ome of the greatest people I ever met in my entire life. And just, like, I’ve had the best four years I’ve ever had in my entire life.” 

His decision to come back was motivated by his love of being on the team, and his desire to prove to himself that even if he may not go pro he has the ability. 

Whether it is on or off the field, we all share the same goal: we want to find something we are good at. For Fara, it might be chemical engineering. For Ulliana, it’s baseball. And for many other college athletes, the pandemic might have robbed them of their opportunity to have that one last season to be great. 

Ulliana knows he is lucky. He knows this is his last shot to fulfill his dream, but he doesn’t want to prove it to anyone but himself.

“It was more just like I wanted to prove something to myself. Once it all gets taken away from you, like literally just stolen away from you,… you realize it is all gone,” said Ulliana. “I got another chance. I’m gonna go balls to the wall because I want to prove to myself that I can be something great.”