Most of the attention of fall sports being canceled in the Big Ten on Tuesday was focused directly on the football programs across the conference. However, all 14 Big Ten universities field other teams in the fall, alongside football.

At Illinois, volleyball, cross country and women’s soccer student-athletes, and coaches, join the football program in their fall season being postponed with hopes of playing in the spring.

Illinois volleyball was coming off of another trip to the NCAA tournament after making a Final Four run in the fall of 2018. The women’s cross-country team qualified for the NCAA Championships last fall and returned every member of the 2019 roster. Janet Rayfield’s soccer program was supposed to move into a brand-new soccer stadium – Demerjian Park.

Now, all of that will have to wait until the spring – at the earliest.

Over the last 10 years, Illinois’ most successful team sport is women’s volleyball. Head coach Chris Tamas took the team to the national championship in the fall of 2018 and lost in five sets to conference rival Nebraska. The 2019 season was as bright for Tamas’ program, but they did reach the NCAA Tournament again.

The Illini were set to replace several key members of the 2019 squad, including Jaqueline Quade, Morgan O’Brien and Ashlynn Fleming. However, the Illini return sophomore Kennedy Collins, junior Taylor Kuper, and redshirt sophomore setter Diana Brown.

Despite the major losses, there was the expectation that Illinois could compete to return to the NCAA Tournament again in what would have been Tamas’ fourth year in Champaign.

“It is was a tough day, all the athletes pour their heart and soul into this.” Tamas said, “For a lot of them it is all the know, it is what they do, it is why they came here along with getting an excellent education. We had prepped for the day that it could happen, but it doesn’t make the day any easier. We talked about understanding the bigger picture of this, we are very well aware of that.”

Illinois’ women’s soccer program was supposed to begin playing in a shiny new outdoor facility at Demerjian Park, which includes two new fields along with new locker rooms and other facility upgrades, in October.

The original plan was for the new facility to ready for competition as student-athletes returned to campus this fall, but the project brought on small delays, which caused the opening date to be pushed to October.

Head Soccer Coach Janet Rayfield is excited about having the opportunity to play a full season in Demerjian Park, rather than just a portion of the season.

“To have Demerjian Park compete in the spring is a positive opportunity out of this for us, and that is what we are trying to hang our cleats on,” Rayfield said.

Rayfield has been involved with coaching at all levels, including time spend with U.S. soccer on the staff of for the women’s national team. However, a spring season is something that she has never seen in her time at the college level.

“We can throw out our 25-years of experience of knowing what the season looks like because just changed it to something that it has never been.” Rayfield said, “It is an opportunity for us to grow and challenge ourselves in our creative thinking.”

Illinois’ cross-country runners were the last group to arrive on campus this summer. The team reported back to Champaign on Monday, just a day before they found out that their season was canceled.

It’s not the first time that the runners had a season canceled, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many distance runners also participate in track and field, which occurs in the spring.

Head Cross Country Coach Sarah Haveman said, “It has been heartbreaking, to say the least, but in our program, we focus about what kind of legacy we leave behind. We have really been talking about the legacy of 2020. That is a legacy of faith belief and sacrifice and our fall is saying that it is going to be that same kind of sacrifice (as the spring).”

The women’s cross-country team was primed to follow up one of the best seasons in program history with hopes of winning a second consecutive NCAA regional championship. That is now unlikely with the outdoor track season already scheduled for the 2021 spring.

“We want to compete, but we are going to focus on the opportunity this presents us, and when the lights come back on, we will be ready to roll,” Haveman said.