Moon Township, Pa. - Chris Shaw was really looking forward to getting to watch his team play.

Hired in December as the newest head coach of the Robert Morris University women's soccer team, Shaw had just started to settle in to his new role at RMU after spending six seasons out west at the helm of UNLV. 

Evaluating his new players and heading out on the recruiting trail in search of girls to fit a different system and style for RMU soccer were at the forefront of his mind heading into a very vital spring season.

Just one month later, his outlook has changed quite a bit.

Instead of putting his team through its first spring camp and hitting the recruiting trail this summer, the RMU newcomer finds himself instead stuck at home and apart from his new squad as he attempts to remotely guide them through summer workouts and provide as much of a sense of normalcy as possible.

"Heading into the summer, my thought process is just to treat it like we would treat the summer in any other year," Shaw said. "We'll send them their workout packet and have some contact with them, but it's not daily Zoom meetings or anything like that. Checking in periodically and making sure they know they can reach out if they need anything, but I don't want them to feel like 'Oh, another meeting,' but to let them all deal with it how they need."

The first year for a new head coach at a program is of vital importance. Getting a feel for the new players and building relationships with them, as well as vigilantly hunting for new recruits to help build the team in your image, are paramount in keeping a program afloat amidst a change of leadership.

While Shaw has been able to communicate and build connections with his new team in the four months since being hired, the Coronavirus shutdown has hindered his ability to recruit new talent to fill incoming freshman classes.

It's an issue everyone in college sports is dealing with at the moment, but for Shaw, the lack of intimate knowledge of Western Pennsylvania and the local talent within has been a double-whammy for his recruitment efforts.

"The biggest challenge has really been recruiting," Shaw said. "Coming from the West Coast, most of my recruiting was from there. I was still trying to get myself acclimated to the East Coast, getting to know other coaches and clubs and look for potential recruits, so we're probably a little bit behind the curve there at the moment."

Making things tougher is Shaw's current lack of valuable opportunities to evaluate his team.

The rapid cancellation of NCAA athletics back in March occurred just days before Shaw was scheduled to watch his team play a scrimmage against outside competition for the very first time.

With everyone apart and the recruiting trail gone cold, the window for Shaw to take stock of his new team has shrunk dramatically.

"The weekend they canceled everything we were going to have our first spring scrimmage, and it was going to be the first time I actually got to see them play against someone besides themselves in practice," Shaw said. "It was something I was really looking forward to, and obviously it's been a challenging situation. The spring was going to be really important to help us understand where we were heading into the fall."

To say that Shaw and his staff have their work cut out from them is a bit of an understatement.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, the veteran head coach knows that to start making excuses now would only make things worse. For him, treating everything as business as usual until told otherwise is the only way to get through the current epidemic.

"Ultimately, this is the hand we've been dealt," Shaw said. "Moving forward, we'll have to evaluate some things a little bit quicker, but right now we're doing what we can to treat this summer just like any other. If someone comes along and says things are going to be different, we'll deal with that too, but right now you just want to keep things as normal as possible."

Right now, what happens with fall sports is still up in the air.

Eventually, the Colonials will return to the field and Shaw will finally get to see his team in action. A return to normalcy and the resumption of college sports would no doubt be welcomed by all after so many aspects of daily life have been completely upended.

But until that time, Shaw is hopeful that the current pandemic helps not only his girls but college athletes everywhere realize how valuable their current opportunity is.

"Any time you have something taken away from you unexpectedly it kind of makes you value it a bit more," Shaw said.  "Hopefully what's happened is these kids have realized how much they miss being at a university and interacting with their friends and playing soccer. Even just the freedom that they had to go and go to a restaurant or go out in public. Hopefully it's made them appreciate that all the more."

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