The first time Brooke Snyder, a senior student-athlete at Linfield College, heard about the coronavirus was early February, 2020.  She said, “I remember people making jokes about it on Twitter, but then I kind of forgot about it. It was not an immediate threat to me at the time.” Little did she know that a month later her every day activities would be limited to the confines of her own home.

As a four year softball athlete, Brooke was used to having a busy spring semester. In fact, she was traveling with her team to Arizona in early March when the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak became apparent to her. Her dad asked her if they were planning to cancel the trip to Arizona. This confused her and she questioned him, “why would they cancel it?”  But in a few short days after landing back in Oregon, the NCAA had canceled all championship tournaments for the rest of the season. Soon after, Linfield’s conference play was suspended and then later canceled. Brooke’s senior softball season was over.

“It’s funny because it’s the things that I didn’t like at the time that now I look back on and will never forget. I remember having to tarp our softball field. I always hated it in the moment, but looking back on it, it was so funny. I have so many funny videos of my friends drenched from the rain. Going through that together is something I will never forget.” She said she will always remember March 12, 2020 as the day her senior season was canceled. The team was warming up for practice and her coach called them into the huddle and broke the news. 

Soon after Brooke’s season was canceled, Linfield College began the transition to online learning. At first, the college extended spring break for two weeks and suspended in-person classes until April 10. Eventually, the rest of the semester would be conducted in an online format and the senior commencement ceremony would be postponed to a later date.

In her time at Linfield, Brooke was a part of several on-campus clubs. Most notably, the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), where she served as the community outreach chair and the Alpha Phi sorority, where she participated in countless philanthropy events to fund and support women’s heart health. Along with a rigorous softball schedule, Brooke was constantly busy. “January through May we would practice or play in games for a minimum of four hours a day,” she said. Most of her time was spent with her teammates.

In her final semester, Brooke had a lot to look forward to. Senior day, where each softball senior would be honored for their commitment to the program was canceled. Countless academic and athletic award banquets, sorority events, social gatherings were all canceled. Perhaps one of the biggest let downs was the loss of a job following graduation. In January, Brooke had committed to starting her career at a marketing agency in Beaverton, Oregon to work as an event coordinator. Due to the conditions, the company had to retract their offer.

All of these adjustments are difficult for any person to take in. Yes, Brooke was sad, but that did not stop her from changing her perspective on the situation. She said “I think I had one day where I felt sorry for myself and then I got over it. You just have to move on and see it as an opportunity.”

Through this process, Brooke’s dad served as an encouraging mentor. He helped her to discover other job opportunities, while also recommending she stay highly active on LinkedIn. In addition, her dad helped her cope emotionally. She said, “My dad gave me some really good advice. He said, ‘I know a lot of bad stuff has happened, but you need to find at least one positive thing to come out of this.’”

Since the ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ order was put into place in Oregon, Brooke found many ways to keep herself busy and stay positive. The first thing she did was journal and get all of her thoughts and emotions out on paper. This helped her to realize how she was thinking about the situation. She said “there are people all over the world that have it so much worse than me right now.” From then on, she chose to focus on ways to fill her time. She began reading for enjoyment, cooking a lot of meals, working out with her roommates and getting in touch virtually with people she had not seen in awhile.

Her conversations with people began to become more meaningful, Brooke said. She was no longer sending snapchats just to keep the streak, but rather genuinely asked people how they were doing. She has kept in touch with her teammates and coaches. They have mini-workout challenges every few days to keep them connected.

Brooke said, “I’m such a planner, so I had to learn to just throw everything out the window.” As difficult as it has been for her, she is looking to the future and has faith that things will get better. Ultimately, she said we will have a story to tell our children and advise them on how to get through difficult things life throws at us.

Brooke is an example of a woman who has faced extreme disappointments and adversity in the last few months, yet has approached this situation with a clear head and a motivated spirit. Maybe it’s the support from her teammates, who are also her roommates, or the mentoring from her dad. Or maybe it’s the athlete mindset to keep pushing forward that’s been ingrained in her since she was a little girl that encouraged her to be positive in these unprecedented times. Maybe it’s a little bit of everything. Regardless, Brooke does not quit and she chose to find joy and look toward a brighter tomorrow.