Bates junior football player Caleb Bolden switched from the offensive side of the ball as a running back to a defensive back last season after a high school career as an all-state wide receiver. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the changes everyone now faces in the era of COVID-19.

But at the outset of this academic year and a fall season without games, Bolden is unfazed.

"I was never nervous for the school year. I knew Bates was serious about having this school year and I trusted in their plan," he said. "In regards to the fall season, I am already trying to get in the mindset of a senior, since that is the next time I will be playing. Working out during the summer got very mundane, so getting back with the team was very exciting. The excitement grows as we do more team stuff together."

In the months since the pandemic hit, Bolden kept busy beyond those mundane home workouts. He was employed over the summer as a line cook at a restaurant, and found that he enjoyed the excitement and communal feeling in that line of work, after a previous job in retail. 

Bolden has maintained a 3.4 grade point average while majoring in psychology, with concentrations in culture and meaning and psychology and philosophy. A class in African American Literature ranks as his favorite through his first two years at Bates. “For a lot of my life the only claim that I had to be black was my ancestry,” he said. “Now I am learning about my people’s history, and it gives me more of an understanding of the past while contributing to my sense of identity.”

Now that he’s back on campus and settling into classes, Bolden is keeping an eye out for ways to volunteer with local schoolchildren — a common activity within the Bates football program.

In his down time, Bolden shines as a “video game wizard,” in the words of head coach Malik Hall, with a reputation as the best Call of Duty player on campus. Bolden downplays his skills, allowing that he may be good but he isn’t a pro — “but I wouldn’t mind becoming one.” He says he plays strictly for fun, and the best part of it in the COVID era is that it allows him to stay connected with friends from home, in Dover, N.H.

Bolden and his fellow juniors on the Bobcats endured a string of losses to begin their college careers, but rallied to win the last two games of the 2019 season. Belief and momentum in the team’s progress began to crystallize. Now, being back at practice together is thrilling but also strange, not knowing when the Bobcats will take the field again for a NESCAC game.

“It’s obvious that we haven’t had a lot of success in a long time, but these next two years were supposed to be the years we were going to change that around,” he said. “I guess now everyone has to trust in the process and grind till next season. Then we’ll dominate.”