A Message from the AD's Desk

Dear CMS Family,

Thank for your continued support through an exceptionally challenging 2020.

Despite all that 2020 has thrown at us, I am tremendously proud of our student-athletes, coaches, and staff for their grit and ingenuity. None of our student-athletes nor coaches envisioned college athletics would consist solely of virtual activity this fall—or know what that would even mean. But now we know. It was team Zooms (lots of team Zooms!). Sometimes it was mental skills training, other times it was team film review and strategy sessions or virtual strength and conditioning sessions. I’d like to give a huge shout out to our strength and conditioning staff who led synchronous workouts for our student-athletes while creating asynchronous options as well. CMS student-athletes filmed workouts at home and coaches reviewed them and provided feedback and coaching. Our student-athletes and coaches adjusted, like the champions that they are.

I couldn’t be more proud of how our team has continued to rise to the occasion in supporting each other and in serving our campus and local community. Athenas and Stags, through our Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), executed an incredible volunteer program with the Ramona School, assisting all semester with online education. Through the ingenuity of our coaches and staff, we also partnered with Pomona-Pitzer to create virtual after school programming for children of faculty and staff at our five colleges. It’s also been fun to see how our head coaches, who serve as PE faculty, quickly shifted their focus to re-imagine and re-design their PE courses to create a virtual PE curriculum that truly supported student health and wellness. Similarly, our Recreation staff made an incredible pivot to create an array of virtual recreation opportunities and continued to innovate to support our CMS community of students, faculty, and staff.

We also leaned in and utilized the time not on the fields of competition to work to make our department stronger and to continue to create an environment that supports our students and staff. Two new committees - Student-Athlete Mental Health and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - were successful in bringing CMS student-athletes, coaches, and staff together with faculty and staff from all three of our campuses, for important discussions and activities. We look forward to seeing these committees become part of the fabric of our incredible department.

Although we will start the spring once again virtually, we are keeping hope alive that we may see a return to campus—and to our CMS facilities—later in the spring. Whatever happens I have no doubt that the challenges we have encountered have made us stronger and more unified for when we can safely return to the court, field, course, pool, and track.

Happy Holidays and New Year from CMS. Go Athenas and Go Stags.

Sincerely,

Erica Perkins Jasper

William B. Arce Director of Athletics, Physical Education, & Recreation and George R. Roberts Fellow