The COVID-19 pandemic brought training and competing to a screeching halt for athletes nationwide. Uncertainty shrouded the 2019-20 season as many wondered how long it would be until they could once again represent their university in the collegiate arena or reunite with their teammates on campus. Others had their very first collegiate season ripped from their grasp.

Eighteen days after the United States went into lockdown, the NCAA started announcing extensions to athletic eligibility — coined COVID-19 eligibility extensions — that would grant athletes whose competitive seasons were impacted by the pandemic an additional year to complete four seasons of competition. The close of the 2024-25 athletic season will mark the end of COVID-19 eligibility.

Dozens of eligible athletes flocked to various athletic programs at NYU. New York City native and graduate student Evan Sherman, who runs for both the NYU men’s cross country and track and field teams, is one of these athletes.

Sherman was a first-year at Brown University when the pandemic struck. Though he enjoyed running at Brown, Sherman dealt with injuries that left him questioning himself within the sport.

“I didn’t really have as much success as I would have wanted,” Sherman said in an interview with WSN. 

He added that he felt like he had more to give after completing his undergraduate degree. Sherman’s coach at Brown is an acquaintance of the NYU head coach, Tyler Deck Shipley. NYU’s strong graduate history program and high-level Division III athletic programs, as well as the coach’s acquaintance, drew Sherman back to the city. 

“Coming into NYU and then onto a team that was kind of like poised for national success was also a really great thing,” Sherman said.

Sherman competed this past fall with the NYU men’s cross country team at the NCAA DIII Championship and contributed to the team’s fifth-place finish, achieving successes that have made him feel as though he is “filling in some of those gaps” from his undergraduate running career.

Other athletes chose to remain with the NYU team they competed with during undergraduate as fifth-year seniors. One of those athletes is former WBCA DIII Player of the Year Natalie Bruns, a forward on the women’s basketball team, who studies business and technology management at the Tandon School of Engineering.

Over the course of her four years with NYU Athletics, Bruns saw the trajectory of the women’s basketball program “expand exponentially.”

“Throughout my entire course here, [the program] got even more competitive,” Bruns said. “It’s been great being able to expand our community and expand the hard work and success that we’ve created over the past few years.”

Coming off of that success, Bruns did look at Division I programs to complete her fifth year. However, after having a great experience with the Violets, she decided to stay and end her collegiate career on a familiar note.

“I wanted to explore my other options,” Bruns said. “But having such a great experience here, I knew that I kind of wanted to come back and experience that again. Winning a national championship — that is something that people want to be a part of. Anybody who’s a competitor loves to win. And what better place to go than a team that was just undefeated.”

To the St. Louis native, the culture cultivated at NYU and the balance she is able to find between academics and athletics makes the difference.

NYU women’s soccer team goalkeeper Riley Felsher, who double majors in neural science and Spanish, agrees with Bruns.

“[The coaches] are very aware of the fact that we’re students first and then athletes, and I don’t think that you can find that at every school,” Felsher said.

This, in addition to the strong bonds she made with the other athletes on the NYU team during undergrad as well as the positive team culture head coach Scott Waddell creates, largely informed Felsher’s decision to take her fifth year at NYU.

“I don’t think I ever considered leaving to go to a different school,” Felsher said. “I didn’t feel like the chapter was over. I felt like there was still more to go and that our group could accomplish more, so I wanted to see what we could do.”

Three other athletes on the women’s soccer team are joining Felsher in taking their extra year of eligibility with NYU. She attributes the number to “the academic caliber” of NYU as well as its standing as a “top-tier institution.”

“Regardless of us being a D-III school, D-I athletes still want to come here and compete and play at the highest level while getting that degree that will help them professionally down the road,” Felsher said.

Contact Katie Kubiak at [email protected]