Word had trickled down in late December to J.D. Gustin, the women’s basketball coach at Dixie State University, a southern Utah college making the leap to N.C.A.A. Division I athletics, that some of his players had misgivings about continuing to play during the pandemic.
At that point, most of the players and coaches had previously contracted the coronavirus, and the team had canceled three of its first six scheduled games because of infections. But their Western Athletic Conference season was about to begin, and the coach needed to know where his team stood.
So Gustin handed his players a brief letter he had typed himself.