A selfless decision: How a Fresno State coach stepped up — and aside — during COVID

Fresno State had a spring practice and a summer filled with strength and conditioning workouts, unlike a year ago. Fall camp went without a hiccup, start to finish.

And, though COVID-19 and the delta variant still are omnipresent, football is just about back to normal for the Bulldogs and that includes defensive coordinator William Inge, who did not test positive and was not flagged by contract tracing protocols, but still was upended last season by the coronavirus pandemic.

It was right about this time, one day before the 2020 opener.

Inge had an off-campus appointment on game week Thursday and the following day was told that a positive test had popped up in that office. The risk to Inge was deemed minimal, but at that point in the season and pandemic, and proceeding with an abundance of caution with so many unknowns, he went into isolation for 14 days.

Inge was not going to risk bringing anything home, or into the office. It was about protecting the team, he said.

“That’s just who he is,” coach Kalen DeBoer said. “He’s a selfless person. He gives everything for the good of the team. It was really hard, not just the execution of his job, because he really wanted to be there around the players. He knew that we couldn’t risk it, even though there was close to 0% chance from what we were told.”

During those two weeks Inge lived and worked in the motor home that his family most years will take on summer road trips to just about everywhere, only this time without his wife Rae Ann and children Isaiah, Keara and Raya and this time without the laughs and smiles and good times associated with that vacation home on wheels.

He parked the RV in the Bulldog Stadium lot and moved in. “I saw it from a different perspective,” Inge said.

His meals were dropped off for him, outside on the curb. “The guys would bring me lunch,” Inge said. “They would set it out by the gate and I would go get my lunch and go back to the RV.”

Coaching through COVID-19 isolation

He met with staff and players by Zoom and at practice was kept well clear from drills, using a megaphone to close that distance.

During the first game he was squirreled away in a spot under the press box at Bulldog Stadium that the facilities department had set up for him on the fly, rather than calling plays from the sideline.

The following week, after the Bulldogs beat Colorado State and DeBoer recorded his first victory at the school, Inge sat alone in the courtyard outside the Duncan Building listening to the celebration inside.

“I could hear the festivities and singing of the fight song going on, but I was just sitting there,” Inge said. “After a while I said, ‘I guess I should go back to the RV and start grading the film.’ That’s just what it was like. …

“But we had to protect our football team. I was not willing to breach that, on my end, so, I’m going to get tested all the time, but I have to do my job and stay away from everyone.”

Inge will be on the sideline on Saturday when Fresno State opens the season against UConn at 11 a.m., as he was at the end of last season. But then, and now, the coronavirus is in perspective.

“With what occurred, anyone who has a chance to see 2021, that has to be a blessing, if you knew someone that didn’t make it out of 2020,” Inge said. “I feel for those who lost a family member but did not have an opportunity to respectfully, let’s say, cherish them or bury them.

“There are individuals who had funerals and you couldn’t have a funeral. No one knew what was going on. I really feel for all of those families, and also feel very fortunate that we weren’t truly impacted with direct impact by the virus because it’s real. There are a lot of people who may not respect it, but it is real and it attacks bodies in different ways. That’s exactly what science has told us, and that’s exactly what happens.”

That didn’t make it easier on the Bulldogs, who were 3-1 when their season fell apart following a trip to Utah State, playing in a state that was under a state of emergency order due to a surge in COVID-19 cases and to address overcrowding in hospitals.

The next two games, rivalry matchups against San Jose State and San Diego State, had to be canceled.

The Bulldogs then resumed their season with a depleted roster, losing at Nevada and to New Mexico in Las Vegas.

Football is a game of adjustments

“That’s just one example of stuff throughout the year that was hard to overcome,” DeBoer said. “But we just did not want to do anything to put any of our players or our coaches in harm’s way.”

Almost daily, there were adjustments to be made following COVID-19 test results or contact tracing protocols.

“It’s the one thing we always tell our players, you have to adapt and adjust,” assistant coach Julius Brown said. “We had games where things weren’t normal – coaches coaching from different spots, coaches missing practice for different reasons. It was all about adapting and adjusting for us. It was definitely a learning experience.

“You go back and look at it and it’s like, ‘Wow, we were really able to do that?’ Obviously, it was different.”

“There’s a first time for everything, right?” safeties coach Chuck Morrell said. “In the madness that had spread across the world at that point, nothing would shock you. From a societal standpoint that kind of is our new normal — expect the unexpected. But I think as longtime defensive coaches, your mind is built like that anyway.

“You’re kind of constantly paranoid and ready to adapt and adjust all the time. I think that’s built into a defensive coach’s DNA to begin with.”

That helped Inge, to a point. But the isolation, he said, was not easy.

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Inge said. “The one thing that I knew, and I convinced myself of this because of my faith, I said, ‘Well, you know what, if there’s one person who can deal with this, it’s me. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to enjoy it. I’m going to show the example, because you never know when one of our student-athletes was going to do this, also.’

“At least they already had an example of ‘Hey, this could actually happen.’ But you can do well. You can make sure all of the things are done that need to be done. You can communicate like you’re supposed to. You can have successful meetings. You can make sure that your players are ready to play and still be in an isolation scenario.’”

It was a rough two weeks, but a defense that was absorbing a new 4-2-5 scheme without the benefit of a spring or a summer was making progress when it was shut down after the game at Utah State.

“I know for me, I’ve always been built to try to keep a positive outlook,” Inge said. “I’m not the woe-is-me kind of person. If I was in isolation, OK, that’s what it is. We have to keep it rolling and things have to keep on moving.

“You can’t let the things that happen to you affect you, and we can’t let the kids see that because if our players saw that, well, now guess what they would have thought? ‘It’s OK for them to break down when they have to experience adversity.’ I hope what they saw during that time is me being even stronger, me giving them even more attention in indirect ways and also having the structure the way it needed to be.”

Fresno State vs. UConn

When: Saturday, 11 a.m.

Where: Bulldog Stadium

TV: CBS Sports Network (Rich Waltz, Aaron Taylor and Jenny Dell)

• Find it fast: AT&T (Channels 643, 1643), Comcast (418, 732), DirecTV (221), Dish Network (158)

Radio: Bulldog Sports Network (Paul Loeffler, Pat Hill, Cameron Worrell)

• Find it fast: Fresno (AM1340), Bakersfield (AM970), Visalia (AM1130), Modesto (FM92.9), Stockton (AM1280), Bulldogs App, iHeartMedia app

The coaches: Kalen DeBoer (3-3 entering second season at Fresno State), Randy Edsall (78-90 entering 16th season at UConn, 100-121 entering 21st season overall)

The records: Fresno State 3-3 in 2020, UConn 0-0 in 2020

The series: First meeting

Tickets: 559-278-DOGS or gobulldogs.com

This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 11:04 AM.