"At about 4:15, the bomb went off"

Earlier today, Monte Lee spent some time on Out of Bounds with Qualk and Kelly on WCCP-FM. Clemson’s head baseball coach spent the majority of his time on the show breaking down the recent events that took place with baseball season coming to an abrupt stop.

Coach Lee noted the importance of everyone recognizing just how fast things moved as the COVID-19 virus began spreading across much of the world and the United States.

"I think it's really important for all of us, especially when you're dealing with something as big as the Coronavirus Pandemic and on a national level. You have to look at it from my standpoint of, 'Okay, what is the most simple way that I can help the people that are my priority?' Which is the student athletes that play for me, my staff, and my family? How do I keep my family safe? How do I educate them about the measures that they need to take to stay safe, along with myself and my players? What social distancing is-- stay at home, don't go out into large crowds.”

Another aspect that Coach Lee is working through is distance learning and what can be done to help his players as they work through that aspect of the changes that are now in place.

"The main focus for our guys, once they come off of spring break, which is this week, is the transition into online eLearning, which they will be doing as of now until April 5. We just want to make sure that their primary focus is their safety, and then academically, what eLearning looks like. What steps do they need to take to make sure they're doing all the things that they need to do to maintain their grades and do all the things they need to do academically."

Staying in touch with players is easy during the season, but not so much when they are at home, and Lee has put in place several steps to help out his team.

"If they need any support whatsoever, we just want to be a resource to them with weekly phone calls, FaceTime, communication, answering questions for them and for their families,” Lee noted. "Really just trying to communicate as much as we can, the primary focuses: academics and safety, for the time being.”

As for baseball, Lee said that will have to wait.

“We'll get back to baseball, whenever we get back to baseball. We don't know what the future looks like in terms of when we'll be able to go back to some sort of normal activity."

Everyone has experienced the drastic changes that COVID-19 has placed on our society and Coach Lee was willing to run through the entire events that took place last week.

"I'll walk you exactly through what Thursday looked like and Friday and Saturday. One thing that everybody needs to understand is just how fast this thing moved. It was so fast, and it was changing hour by hour, day by day, and the information that we were getting at certain points of the day, literally within a couple of hours it would change to something more drastic."

© Clemson SID

Clemson’s 2020 baseball season came to a quick close after the COVID-19 virus began hitting America.

Lee continued to stress the speed in which things changed for the Tigers as they prepared for a weekend series against Wake Forest.

"I think that the first thing to make sure everybody understands is that this thing moved very fast. I mean, you know, to kind of walk you through it, we played Wednesday night against Winthrop. Had an 11 inning game, we win 3-2, in extra innings. That was a great team win, an emotional win. There had been some discussions, that there's a chance that when we go to Wake Forest that weekend that we may be playing in front of a limited crowd, you know whether that was no fans whatsoever, or maybe just, the parents of the student-athletes from both sides may be able to actually attend the contest. There had been some discussions about that and what does that look like?”

According to Lee, the team had already made some adjustments to limit direct contact with both mid-week opponents and fans after the games.

“We had discussed and had actually put in place for those two mid-week games, the Presbyterian game and the Winthrop game, we're going to limit shaking hands. We are not going to go up into the stands after the game. We want you guys to go inside and shower, take care of that first. Turn your laundry in so we can wash it. Let the crowd in the stadium clear out and then go see your parents if needed.”

Following the Winthrop game, Lee was asked about the chances that the Tigers might play in front of a limited crowd, but at that time he didn’t have that information but thought it could possibly happen.

"You go to bed that night and our itinerary for Thursday was, we were going to lift weights from 11:30 to 12:30. Then we were going to leave at one o'clock, to go on the road to Winston-Salem. We were going to check into the hotel and go practice-- our typical Thursday road itinerary,” Lee stated. “We're in the weight room at 11:30 working out and about halfway through that session in the weight room, we had gotten a phone call that the ACC Basketball Tournament had been canceled. Clemson was getting ready to play and all of a sudden, they go on the court and shut everything down. We had gotten word at that point that we needed to hold our guys from getting on the bus. We're not quite sure what's going to happen yet, but let's just make sure that all the guys know that we're not going to get on the bus. We're not going to be leaving at one o'clock. There are some conference calls that are going to be made at the league level. Then our administration would let me know the appropriate steps to take. So that's what we did."

Lee waited for an update and informed his team that things were changing at the ACC Tournament.

"I walked into the weight room at about 12:15. The guys were finishing up their weights. I brought everybody together and told them, 'Hey guys, we just got a phone call: the ACC Basketball Tournament has been shut down. We're to hold tight in the facility, until further notice. Go take a shower, turn your stuff in, get something to eat, and just kind of hang out here. Don't go anywhere until I know more.'"

A little later in the day, the ACC had a conference call and then relayed the message to athletic departments that all spring competitions were suspended indefinitely.

"At the time, the SEC had put out that they were going to suspend spring competition until March 30,” Lee recalled. “I thought we took the appropriate step there and just putting it as indefinite, more of a wait-and-see type measures as a league."

From that point, Lee took the information that he had to his players.

"I had a conversation with our administration about it just making sure again that I give them the appropriate information. Had a meeting, told the guys, 'Hey guys, we’re suspended from baseball activity. What looks like, could be for a couple of weeks, we're not sure.' I just shared with them what the league had put out there that we were suspended indefinitely. I told them that once I have some conversations with our administration about what the next couple of weeks looks like-- whether we do, group work, whether we team practice here at home. We just wait and see what's going to happen. Whether we're just going to be shut down completely, we don't know, ‘but I will keep you guys posted,’ We literally went upstairs that was about 3:00.”

Lee and his staff decided to come up with a plan, but he knew it couldn’t be too lengthy given the rapid changes that were taking place.

"We waited for the ACC statement to come out, met with the guys. (I) Went upstairs with the whole coaching staff, and from about 3:00-4:00 we were putting together a three-day plan. That was one thing that I thought was appropriate. I knew that this thing was going to change, you could just sense. From Wednesday night to Thursday this thing is changing and it's speeding up pretty quickly on a national level. Let's just put together a three-day plan for our guys and have that in place and once we know more we'll put it out. We had put together groups of five at a time, just in case we could do things, and we were on hold. We weren't going to do anything until we knew more, but we wanted to have a plan in place for the guys because they wanted to know. ‘Coach, what are we going to do? Can we hit? Can we throw? Can we lift? In this time period, what can we do?’”

In the middle of those plans, Lee said more news came down the line that rocked everyone in the room.

“We were putting together a plan, and at about 4:15, the bomb went off-- the tweet went out from the NCAA that the College World Series had been canceled. Which, effectively meant in my mind, okay, College World Series canceled, the NCAA Tournament is canceled, this thing is going in the direction of, there's not going to be a rest of the season. We could see that, and since that, and we felt like that was likely."

Lee contacted the administration to learn more because based on the text messages he was getting from his team he knew he had to meet with them again.

"Once that tweet (canceling the CWS) went out, I started to get text messages from the players. Did they really just cancel the College World Series? And I said, 'yes', and felt like we need to have another meeting with the guys. We met again, and I shared with them, at that time, the appropriate measures that we needed to take. No. 1, we're not going to do any baseball activity. Your safety is our primary concern, academics are our primary concern. We knew by that time that we were going to eLearning at least until the end of the month. At that time it was just until the end of the month,” Lee noted. “We shared with our guys, 'Listen, you guys need to go home. You need to be with your families. We will communicate with you as we know more.' I told them that it was likely, based on the fact that the NCAA canceled the College World Series and the NCAA Tournament. We told our guys that it's likely that we may not play baseball for the rest of the season; it looks like it could be over. I wanted to make sure that I was as honest with our guys as I can possibly be. That's always been very important to me, that I'm very transparent and very honest with our guys. I just told them, 'If this is the end of our season, how proud I am of them. How tough a group this was, through 17 games.'"

Speaking of the team, Lee reiterated just how great the group had been to work with during their short campaign.

"Six one-run games, we won all of them. It just showed you how gritty and how tough and how selfless our guys were this year. How important that team was to these guys. We didn't have loads of superstars and individuals on this team, we had a true team and the leadership on this team was the best I've ever had.”

That leadership started at the top with the Leadership Council, a select group of players who are the voice for the players.

“Our leadership council, the guys that have been voted by the team is as the true voice of the team. Those guys were just phenomenal this year. Sam Weatherly, Carson Spiers, Spencer Strider, Bryce Teodosio, Sam Hall, Adam Hackenberg that was our leadership council this year. Those guys put the team before everything else, and I just can't speak enough to the people out there, just how special this group of players were together to me as a coach and to our coaching staff. It was just a special group and you hate to see all the good things that we were doing as a team come to an end but you also have to understand just how big this thing is nationally and just how important everybody's health is.”

While Coach Lee is disappointed, he said it’s much bigger than baseball right now.

“If that means our season is over and we need to go home and be safe, then that's what we have to do. We have to respect that. We have to embrace that. We have to adjust to it,” Lee said. “I know this, it certainly gives me as a coach, a different perspective and appreciation for what we get to do day in and day out. All the stress of trying to focus on winning and the pressures that come with being a coach and the sleepless nights. Right now, it's like, you know, why do we stress so much over this thing? Why do we focus so much on the results of winning and losing? When we get a chance to come to the field every day and work with a great group of kids and get a chance to play a game, and to coach a game for a living, I think we all just need to appreciate what these kids, that get a chance to play college athletics, really get to do."

Listening to Coach Lee, you could hear the disappointment in his voice, but these moments have helped him gain a bigger appreciation for what he gets to do for a living.

"There's just more perspective and appreciation for what I get to do. I hope our guys do too. It's been tough, it has. It's just one of those things that, day by day, we just got to keep working through and try to stay positive, and assist our guys any way that we can."