friday, april 3 , 2020. the washington post eZ su C9
BY STEVEN GOFFTy pically this time of year, Ben
olsen is fully engaged as D.C.
United’s longtime head coach —
an all-consuming mind-set that
leaves little time for his wife and
three children — or anything else,
for that matter.
from mid-January until octo-
ber, it’s an endless series of daily
practices, video sessions and road
trips, some of which he takes in a
car by himself or with an assistant
because olsen doesn’t like flying.
This spring, with the novel cor-
onavirus pandemic altering —
and ending — lives, olsen said he
has gained a greater appreciation
for those closest to him, for those
fighting the virus on the front
lines and for a career in sports.
“I am very lucky,” he said dur-
ing a conference call this week
with about a dozen reporters. “I
have a job. my family is healthy.
There is food in the cupboards."
With fields around the city
closed, he and his family play
games in their small backyard in
the District’s Shaw neighbor-
hood. By moving trash cans, the
alley behind their rowhouse
transforms into an obstacle
course.
“I am able to focus on being a
husband and a father right now in
a time when I am not usually a
good husband and father,” he
said. During the season, “I am
looking through my children
rather than at them.”
They have gone on hikes and
had regular sit-down dinners.
“So much time and energy and
emotion is put into the season
that sometimes the family doesn’t
get the love and attention they
need,” he said. “It’s been eye-open-
ing.”
He spends more time home-
schooling than working on tacti-
cal formations.
“I’m trying to relearn fractions
[rather] than watching the miami
game over and over and over.”When he needs time alone, he
withdraws to his private space at
a nearby art studio to paint.
It’s a radical change for some-
one who has been affiliated with
United more than half his life.
olsen, who turns 43 next month,
was a midfielder for 12 seasons, an
assistant coach for eight months
and the interim coach for three-
plus months before accepting the
top job before the 2011 season.
He is the longest-tenured
coach in D.C. pro sports — by a
wide margin — and the second
longest in mLS (behind Kansas
City’s Peter Vermes).
These days, though, “I would be
lying to you if I said I wake up at
7 in the morning and put three
hours of film on of our third
preseason training to watch
[striker ola Kamara’s] movement
in the box for an hour.”
The specter of the crisis is not
lost on the kids, who range in age
from 5 to 11.
olsen and his wife, megan, are
“constantly reminding the chil-
dren there are a lot of people out
there doing great things in a very
tough time.... I am constantly
thinking about others not in the
situation I am in.”
olsen’s thoughts are also with
his younger sister, Erin, a mother
of five in greater Philadelphia
who this past winter was diag-
nosed with pancreatic cancer.
Since the coronavirus outbreak,
he has not been allowed to visit
her because she is high risk.
Though mLS is on hiatus — the
training moratorium was extend-
ed through April 24 on Thursday
— olsen monitors the players and
looks ahead to someday restart-
ing the season.
He is part of a weekly video
conference and speaks regularly
with captain Steven Birnbaum
and others. The training staff pro-
vides workout programs for the
players.
“our priority has [been] — and
will be until we get back — thesafety of our players and making
sure they are in the right environ-
ment to stay healthy and [stay]
fit,” olsen said. “We live in a busi-
ness of control, and we try to
control everything: diet, training
loads, you name it. To not be able
to do that is a little bit frustrating.”
Amid a global crisis, olsen said,
“there is no playbook” for dealing
with players.
He said people have been tell-
ing him how much they miss
sports.
“It’s a strange thing because the
priority of sports in this moment
is low, but at the same time, it is a
big part of the fabric of our coun-
try. We look to sports during these
types of times,” olsen said, citing
the return of competition after
the 200 1 terrorist attacks. “In
some ways, [sports] helped heal.”
Whenever activities resume,
mLS will conduct several weeks of
training camp.
Until then, olsen said, “We be-
lieve we can keep [the players] at
a certain level for a couple weeks,
couple months, whatever it is, so
when we do return, we’re not back
at zero.”
The shutdown impacted not
only the training and match
schedule; it also disrupted Unit-
ed’s i ntensive search for new play-
ers before the current transfer
and trade window closes (may 5)
and the next one opens (July 7).
“our priority right now,” olsen
said, “is the group we have.”
The interruption will impact
mLS’s financial health, just as it
will hit other pro leagues. for
olsen, who witnessed firsthand
mLS’s struggles in the early 2000 s
and rapid growth the past
10 years, the future is not in ques-
tion.
“our roots are very entrenched
in this country. S occer is growing,
and it’s not going anywhere,” he
said. “The league will be just fine
when we get through this, just
like our country will be just fine.”
[email protected]United’s Olsen embraces family, hope
Spanish course would pay off. He
has been calling games for 106. 7
the fan since 2006. But without
baseball and no telling when or
whether it will start this year, he
tried to imagine that it’s w inter. He
didn’t want to dwell on what
Thursday could have been, about
the banner that didn’t go u p, about
how nice the weather was in
Washington, sharp winds and all.
He h as been passing time learn-
ing a second language. His son is
supposed to study i n Chile this fall.
Jageler and his wife booked a trip
to visit a fter the season, and he has
no clue whether any of them will
be there. Jageler didn’t want to
dwell on that, either.
“I’m doing my best to imagine
that it’s December or January,”
Jageler said. “A nd that means it
wouldn’t be too long now until
we’re back in the swing of things.”the fan
Erica Standing would have lin-
gered in row C of Section 103,
whether after a win or a loss, and
hugged what she calls her baseball
family. She would have stopped by
the Budweiser Brew House before
leaving the stadium. She would
have listened to the postgame ra-
dio coverage on her drive home to
Woodbridge. If she tried to call in,
she would have gotten on right
around Springfield.
Instead, at 5 p.m., Standing had
just finished a teleworking shift
and a date with her imagination.
on Twitter, facebook and in a chat
with co-workers, she wrote: “Hap-
py opening Day. I’m leaving the
office at 1 0 to head t o the park, and
I’m wearing my Soto jersey.” one
friend asked whether she wanted
to grab a pregame drink a t the S alt
Line. A few buddies from her sec-
tion kept the charade up over text.
A group met on Zoom to sing
“Take me out to the Ball Game” i n
the early afternoon.
“It was kind of funny and also
kind of sad because nobody was
together,” Standing said. Then,
like Gifford, Cobb, martinez,
Brown and Jageler, she added that
she hopes baseball is back soon.
[email protected]the celebrity host
James Brown would have been
letting loose o n the field at N ation-
als Park. The club had asked him,
one of its founding minority own-
ers, to host the banner-raising
ceremony. He is a D.C. native, a
lifelong Washington baseball fan,
and he was thrilled to help com-
memorate the District’s first
World Series title in 95 years.
“I think about myself as a little
black kid living over there in
Southeast Washington, D.C.,
thinking about playing baseball
when it didn’t materialize in a
career myself,” Brown said when
asked what he would have includ-
ed in the ceremony. “There was so
much excitement that I know it
would’ve been evident in my voice
and my enthusiasm.”
Instead, just after noon, Brown
had to work on a special he is
voicing for CBS. It is a commen-
tary on a world without sports.the bar owner
Gifford would have been rush-
ing around, checking on the kitch-
en, making sure the beer was
stocked and the volume was just
right.
Instead, at 1:06 p.m., he spun
around and asked: “What time is
it? I think it’s right around first
pitch.”
There were 78 grocery orders
and more on the way. He would
stay until 11 p.m. to hand them out
while selling takeout food and
drinks. As he stood in the empty
bar, a red Nationals shirt peeking
out of his zip-up, CNN played on a
massive screen.
Anderson Cooper talked, but
the sound wasn’t on. The chyron
read: “Global Coronavirus Death
To ll Passes 50,000.”the radio announcer
Dave Jageler would have been
high a bove the field, in the Nation-
als Park home radio booth, round-
ing into the late innings with part-
ner Charlie Slowes.
Instead, at 3 p.m., Jageler was
wondering whether this onlinenationals from C8Adjusting to a spring routinein a season with no baseballBY GENE WANGTa king over as Virginia’s start-
ing quarterback was going to be
taxing enough for Brennan Arm-
strong. The redshirt sophomore is
set to follow record-setting Bryce
Perkins, the offensive stalwart
largely responsible for the pro-
gram’s ascent over the past two
seasons.
The assignment became much
more daunting with the cancella-
tion of athletics, including spring
football practice, during the novel
coronavirus pandemic, leaving
Armstrong to use a neighbor’s
garage as a makeshift workout
facility and throwing to ex-high
school teammates while at home
in Shelby, ohio.
“It’s different from going out
and throwing with the guys and
actually getting live reps with the
defense out there and just train-
ing, connection, chemistry-build-
ing,” Armstrong said recently dur-
ing a video conference call with
reporters. “Yeah, it sucks, but just
going to work with what we got
going forward.”
A significant portion of Arm-
strong’s preparation these days
are regular video conversations
with Cavaliers quarterbacks
coach Jason Beck. They watch
game tape together and discuss
throwing motion, timing and oth-
er details about playing the posi-
tion.
Armstrong also stays in touch
with college teammates, particu-
larly a group of wide receivers
featuring Te rrell Jana and Billy
Kemp, through phone calls and
texts, although long-distance
communication hardly serves as
an adequate replacement for
practice.
Jana and Kemp are in line to
replace seniors Joe reed and Ha-
sise Dubois, who led Virginia with
1,062 receiving yards on 75 catch-
es last season. reed was first in
receptions (77) and touchdowns
(seven) and finished with
679 yards, often becoming Per-
kins’s preferred target amid pro-
tection breakdowns.
The offense in general will be
overhauled with the departure of
many significant contributors,
not the least of which was Perkins,
who set the school record for total
offense and directed the Cavaliers
to their first appearance in the
orange Bowl.
Virginia (9-5, 6-2) also won the
ACC Coastal Division for the first
time after going 2-10 during its
first season under Coach Bronco
mendenhall in 2016.
“Brennan Armstrong is as
crafty as they come,” said Cava-
liers linebacker Charles Snowden
(St. Albans). “He knows who he is.
He’s obviously not as explosive as
[Perkins], but he knows that, and
he’s okay with that. He’s still a
gifted runner, gifted thrower. He’s
shown great leadership qualities
thus far.”
Armstrong has attempted
25 passes at V irginia, with 20 com-
ing last season, after appearing in
four games as a freshman in 2018,
when an NCAA rules change per-
mitted those who played a maxi-
mum of four games to remain
eligible for a redshirt season.
Still, even with the dearth ofin-game experience, Armstrong
has cultivated respect from team-
mates, they said, through his dili-
gence on the practice field and in
film study in the quarterbacks
room, where he picked up count-
less tips from Perkins.
“Everything just comes natural
for him,” Perkins said of Arm-
strong. “Even without spring ball,
I think he’ll be super prepared
and ready to take the field. His feel
for the game, he has the best feel
I’ve seen in a while. He just fills
areas and fills spaces so well that
he’ll throw a ball, and it’s like,
‘How’d h e do that?’ ”
But while Armstrong (6-foot-2,
220 pounds) is comparable physi-
cally to Perkins (6-3, 215) and also
can be a threat as a runner, their
individual styles, according to
Armstrong, aren’t e xactly in line.
Perkins frequently made de-
fenders look foolish with his abili-
ty to elude pressure in the back-
field and break away from line-
backers once beyond the line of
scrimmage.
Armstrong, on the other hand,
possesses qualities more in line
with the likes of Ta ysom Hill, a
rugged, dual-threat quarterback
who played for mendenhall at
Brigham Young.
Hill since has become a valu-
able and versatile member of the
New orleans Saints, playing quar-
terback in spots behind Drew
Brees and contributing at other
positions.
“He’s just a player that seems to
win and make players around him
better,” mendenhall said of Arm-
strong. “But there’s a lso an edge to
his personality where I think the
team will take on a little bit more
of a physical presence.
“maybe a combative presence
and maybe a little more edgier or
competitive presence as many
teams d o in relation to their quar-
terback.”
[email protected]Cavs’ Armstrong tries to stay sharp
Physical sophomore will take over as starting QB without spring practice
Justin cooper/associated press
Brennan armstrong has thrown
25 career passes at Virginia.route I would have taken on my
normal “commute,” l ess than a
mile. This time, it was past the
Salt Line restaurant, where the
bar would have been hopping but
instead was dead, past the “Grab
and go” banners that adorn all
the fast-casual restaurants
between m and N Streets.
Whether this was at all
therapeutic, I can’t say. When I
got home, I flipped on mASN,
which was replaying the Nats’
wild-card victory over
milwaukee from last fall, the
comeback that started the ride to
the title. In between innings
came a public service
announcement, with mike rizzo,
the Nationals’ general manager,
standing outside the team’s
shuttered spring training facility
in West Palm Beach, fla.,
wearing a “Kindness is
Contagious” T-shirt.
rizzo said he missed the fans
but reminded everyone to stay
home and stay safe.
“Together,” he said, “we can
finish this fight.”
Whenever that is, there will be
baseball again. July? August? No
predictions here. But a walk
around Nationals Park early
Thursday afternoon left me
missing it more than I had been.
That empty pole should have had
a 2019 flag on it, whipping in that
stiff breeze. Someday, it will. And
when it does, it will represent so
much more than just the World
Series title. It will represent the
normalcy we all crave at the
moment.
[email protected]For more by Barry svrluga, visit
washingtonpost.com/svrluga.There was the no-hope season
of 2009, when they arrived at
Nationals Park 0-6, lost that day
to the Philadelphia Phillies and
never spent a day out of last
place. There was the promise
brought about by Zimmerman’s
scamper home on a walk-off wild
pitch in 2012 that raised their
record to 5-2 and set up the run
to the first National League East
title. Bryce Harper’s two homers
in 2013, Stephen Strasburg over
miami in 2017, Scherzer vs. Jacob
deGrom last year.
Since 2012, the home fans have
arrived for the season’s first
game at Nationals Park expecting
their team to contend. But the
home opener that came and went
Thursday — the one that will
happen, but who’s to say when —
would have been the first when it
made more sense to look back
than to look ahead.
In the 45 minutes I spent
wandering around the ballpark
— never, I assure you, within six
feet of anyone else — there were
some kindred spirits. I could
count them on two hands rather
than by the thousand. A couple,
she in a Juan Soto jersey, he in a
“one Pursuit” T-shirt. Two guys
taking a picture of the Scherzer
mural on the back of the
scoreboard. A man in a 2019
World Series champion pullover.
Etc.
I would love to say that those
characters, the people who
shuffled around clearly missing
the game that wouldn’t be
played, filled me with optimism.
I have to say, though, that the
whole experience felt
melancholy.
I walked back home, the samewhat’s ahead, a communal
experience before the manager
has made you angry or the closer
has let you down. They’re all
different and not just because
there’s an addition to the
rotation or a subtraction from
the lineup or because the flyover
is by helicopters instead of
planes or the anthem is sung by
D.C. Washington or someone
inferior, which is everyone.
They’re different because the
anticipation of what’s to follow is
unique to each season.
The Nationals’ 2005 home
opener — after a nine-game,
three-city road trip to start the
season — stands out, of course,
because no city has ever
welcomed back major League
Baseball after a 33-year absence.
That first game at rfK Stadium
— featuring ceremonial strike
one from George W. Bush to
Brian Schneider before actual
strike one from Livan Hernandez
to Craig Counsell — opened up a
romp of a summer when
everything was unknown. How
would the team do? How would
the fans react? What would
baseball in the nation’s capital
become?
By now, we have a routine, and
each home opener has previewed
something a little different. In
2008, there was a new ballpark
to open, a home that felt more
permanent. I still remember the
looks on the faces of the players
as they gazed around that home
clubhouse, which felt opulent,
and then the optimism —
misplaced optimism, it turned
out — following ryan
Zimmerman’s walk-off home run
that beat the Atlanta Braves.from behind, the
ballpark already
looks different
because the back
of the massive
scoreboard now
boasts a picture of
max Scherzer
thrusting the
World Series trophy above his
head with an untold number of
Washington Nationals fans and
the U.S. Capitol in the
background. Such a nice touch.
otherwise, all the stuff you
would expect to be true was
exactly so Thursday around 1
p.m.: drawn blinds and closed
signs on the ticket windows, an
all but empty players’ parking
lot, a first base entrance with two
exercisers running the stairs,
turnstiles with covers draped
over them. No surprises, really,
on the home opener date with no
home opener.
But to the left of that
enormous photo of Scherzer
celebrating during the Nationals’
championship parade this past
November was the image that
stopped me: four flagpoles. In
the bluster, the flags with the
numbers 192 4, 1925 and 1933
blew stiff and flapped loudly
enough to be heard across the
street. The fourth flagpole stood
barren.
Why I walked from my house
down to Nationals Park at the
time the World Series champions
should have been raising their
banner and receiving their rings
and then facing the New York
mets, I can’t really say. T his is
already trite, isn’t it? Writing
about games that don’t happen
at the times they were supposed
to happen, it’s a bit too meta. If it
feels like something for a
sportswriter to do just to pass the
time when there aren’t any
sports, well, I’m guilty, I suppose.
But I’m also guilty of missing
baseball right now, more than I
guessed I would. The game, of
course, and all its intricacies. But
also the normalcy that a sold-out
ballpark on a sun-splashed day
represents. There are infinite
aspects of the novel coronavirus
pandemic to be bummed out
about, so many of them so
serious and scary. And yet I’m
not ashamed to say that no
baseball — no anything — makes
me more bummed out than I
would otherwise be.
That empty flagpole drove that
home. The three flags that flew
represent the three pennants
won by the Senators all those
years ago, before baseball left
and came back. for years, the
Nats flew an empty flag on the
fourth pole, something of a
pledge of what was to come.
“We’ll win one,” i t seemed to
promise. “Will you?” so many of
us wondered.
Any home opener represents
something, and it’s usually about
At an empty ballpark, it’s hard not to feel even worse
Barry
Svrluga
Jonathan newton/the washington post
nationals Park was shut down thursday afternoon when the home opener should have been played.Jonathan newton/the washington post
owner Jeremy Gifford sorts dozens of takeout receipts at his bar.