On a typical day early in the semester, Texas Women's Basketball's Joanne Allen-Taylor would wake up at 8 in the morning and head to campus for a day that began with early-morning classes, moved to team meetings and practice in the afternoon and wrapped up with an evening class and a return home around 8 that night.
The schedule was made more difficult by the demands of her coursework as a mechanical engineering major in one of the top-ranked engineering programs in the nation. This all changed in early March, as COVID-19 brought much of the world to a halt and all campus activity was shut down.
"Things changed a lot and in a very short time," said Allen-Taylor. "You're used to a routine and knowing what needs to be done each day and at what time."
A 2020 first team Academic All-Big 12 honoree, Allen-Taylor's degree-work allows her to combine her passions for math and art in the hopes of one day landing a career in product design. The ability to earn a degree from one of the top academic institutions in the nation as well as play for a big-time athletics program were major draws for Allen-Taylor.
Now, the daily grind of student-athlete life has been abruptly replaced by the unknown, a new daily routine and new normal that saw the unexpected conclusion of her sophomore campaign and a move to remote learning.
"My class schedule is the same, I have (Mechanics of) Solids and Thermodynamics on Mondays and Dynamics on Tuesdays, so throughout the week I am still taking classes, doing homework and taking quizzes," Allen-Taylor said. "The big thing is that the lectures are taking place on Zoom."
A typical day now has Allen-Taylor waking up in the morning and heading to her computer to log in for her class lecture with 80 to 100 of her classmates.
"It's not too different from listening to the professor in person," Allen-Taylor said. "You listen to the lecture and take notes, and you can ask questions with the hand-raising icon on Zoom."
Professor office hours take place at the same time as previously scheduled, though the sessions also take place on Zoom. The videoconferencing tool is also used for smaller class discussions and workgroups.
"The professors and the school are doing everything they can to make things the same as they were in spite of all the change," Allen-Taylor said.
With her classes wrapped up by noon, Allen-Taylor has the rest of the afternoon to study, workout or just relax. Catching a bus or hopping on a golf cart to get from class to the training facility and back to class has been replaced by closing her laptop and determining which workout to do from a packet provided by Sports Performance Coach Zack Zillner.
Weight training and intensive drills have been swapped for runs around her Houston neighborhood, calisthenics, and skill exercises in her driveway. With a hoop not readily available, ball-handling drills have become the norm.
"It's not the same as actually being in the weight room or being out together with teammates and working out," Allen-Taylor said. "If you are driven, you're going to do what you have to do, so I go running every day, I do my ball handling, I do my calisthenics. You just don't want to sit around. After that, I take naps now and I watch a lot of Netflix. That's my day, basically – school, workout, sleep."
She chats with teammates in a group message each day and makes sure to call one of them every day to check in and see how they are doing.
"I want to find out where their head is at and see how they are holding up," Allen-Taylor said. "With all the changes that have taken place and the move to learning from home, it can be easy to step away from a routine and lose sight of what needs to be checked off each day and what can wait until another time."
For Allen-Taylor, that is not an option.
"I feel I have the same mentality; I think it's just who I am. I can see where it can get distracting – you're at home, you're not on campus, but I think with me, it's my personality, I'm disciplined," Allen-Taylor said. "I wake up, and I get on my Zoom calls, I attend my classes, it's just who I am. I'm the same person at home I'm going to do what I'm supposed to do, just like when I'm on campus."
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