ROB CHANEY
On another March Friday on another planet, the University of Montana Grizzly basketball team was warming up for tournament play in Boise when Seth Bodnar made the call.
âIt was a world ago and the world was shutting down,â the UM president recalled a year later. âI had to call (basketball head coach) Travis DeCuire â they were in the middle of shoot-around â and say âhey, Travis, sorry, weâre ending this. Weâre bringing you back.'â
That was March 13, 2020, the day the University of Montana and much of the United States locked down in a defensive crouch. The World Health Organizationâs Inspector General reported 132,000 cases of COVID-19 in 123 countries and territories, and at least 5,000 deaths. A year later, there would be one hundred times that many dead in the United States alone.