When Navy athletics unveiled guidelines to play this fall, volleyball coach Paco Labrador drew a circle on a map and asked, “Who’s within a four-hour drive?”
“It’s a lot of miles. We have a couple ACC [Atlantic Coast Conference] teams that are interested in that radius,” Labrador said, “but it is slim pickings, I can tell you.”
Each Navy fall sports coach is gingerly stitching schedules together as their options gradually crumble around them due to cancellations and travel restrictions because of the coronavirus pandemic. When the Patriot League canceled fall sports in July, each of the five olympic Navy sports participating were issued an exemption due to the sports’ fulfillment of the Naval Academy’s mission to physically develop future officers.