By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
As the crow flies, Williamsburg and Stanford, California, are nearly 4,000 miles apart. It would take a long day of flying (and who wants to be on an airplane these days) to get from one to the other.
Wednesday afternoon, William & Mary and Stanford will compete in a virtual men's gymnastics meet — a first for each program. The Tribe will be at its training facility in Williamsburg, the Cardinal will be at its venue, and four judges will be in remote locations.
Streaming and scoring will be available on Virtius, a platform created by former Stanford gymnast Ambert Yeung that will allow teams to compete against each other online — and, perhaps, help Division I men's gymnastics stay afloat.
The concept actually began before COVID-19 reared its ugly head. But the pandemic made it more sensible.
"It was focused around cost-savings and increasing access to competition," said
Mike Powell, the Tribe's director of gymnastics. "You can have international competitions and those kind of things. Then COVID really became the catalyst for people picking up the idea and start seriously talking about it.
"The more things went on with the pandemic, the more everyone started thinking if we're going to have any kind of season, this would be a fantastic tool due to the nature of our sport. If we're going to compete safely and address the financial impact of COVID as best we can, we might as well pursue this option and see where it takes us."
The NCAA's first virtual meet was held on Jan. 15 between Illinois and Northern Illinois. One of the participants called it "weird," but weird has become the new normal.
Each site will have a technical director to ensure all standards are met. The Tribe's facility, the Williamsburg Gymnastics, will have a primary camera to live stream routines and a back-up if needed. There will be two TV displays — one streaming Stanford's events, the other with the scoring grid.
"We'll see in real time the scores coming back from the judges," Powell said. "We'll see the final score, the deductions, the start value, all those details you'd see at an in-person competition."
Powell served as chair of the NCAA Men's Gymnastics Committee during much of the conversations. His term ended in August, two months before the NCAA agreed to allow virtual meets.
Of course, it will be unlike anything Powell's gymnasts have ever experienced. Still, they're eager.
"Given the circumstances we're facing in pandemic conditions," Powell said, "if this is how we can compete, this is how we want to compete."
Of W&M's seven dual meets on the schedule, four — Stanford, California, Springfield (Mass.) and Ohio State — are to be virtual. The Tribe will have home-and-home meets against Navy, and Oklahoma is scheduled to come to Kaplan Arena on March 6.
Powell would like to see virtual meets continue, at least to some degree, after the pandemic subsides.
"I certainly don't think it will ever replace in-person competition," he said. "But I'd like to see it continue as long as things go well in a limited capacity where you could count two scores a year, or something like that.
"That gives us the ability to significantly broaden our competition range. There are significant upsides to it, and I can see it continuing in a limited capacity."
Something else to consider: the state of Division I men's gymnastics, a frequent target when athletic departments make cost-cutting measures.
Currently, there are 15 men's programs across the country. Two, Iowa and Minnesota, are scheduled for elimination following the 2020-21 season. W&M was to join them, but the university has extended that through at least the 2021-22 season.
"I think it makes growth and sustainability easier," Powell said. "If we can do that, if any of the puzzle pieces contribute to that, it's a win for our sport. It allows us to compete against a wider breadth of teams and it makes it easier to sustain teams."
