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cavalier sports APRIL 2021 7 Bauman, in his 24th year at UVA, over- sees game management and champion- ships for the athletics department. PHOTO BY JIM DAVES/COURTESY UVA ATHLETICS behind the scenes Associate Athletics Director For Facilities & Operations Jason Bauman J ason Bauman is in his 24th year at Virginia, and he oversees game management and championships for the athletics depart- ment. Like many of those within athletics, the facilities and opera- tions division has seen a dramatic shift in the way its day-to-day jobs function. Bauman and his staff have worked closely with the state and lo- cal governments on policies and procedures to ensure the safety of all those who utilize the athletic facilities, from student-athletes at practice to staff in the workplace and fans that attend events. The facilities and events staff has become the central hub for athletics supplies from safe field equipment, facemasks, signage, sanitizers and much more. Cavalier Corner: How different is your job and the role of your staff from one year ago? Bauman: "I'll start with things that are the same. Myself and all the other event managers are still in charge of multiple details to make an event happen as scheduled. That involves a lot of things. "What's different is the components that we need to plan around — the policy changes, executive orders from the governor and the Department of Health, who is the agency really in charge of com- municating and enforcing those guidelines. "We wanted to hit a home run with our approach. When people came to the venue, we wanted to make sure they felt safe, not only from an event standpoint but also as safe as they could be from a virus standpoint, and we were implementing the practices and protocols the best we could." Cavalier Corner: What has been the most challenging aspect of putting on events in a pandemic? Bauman: "Our drivers on this are the mandatory items from the governor. To make sure we get all of those items and we have no excuses. That's probably the biggest challenge and we can't get complacent. "At the beginning of this, I told my staff that we need to be the experts on the requirements and the best practices that the governor was outlining in order for events to occur." Cavalier Corner: Are there certain things that you can take away from going through all of this that you can apply to the future? Bauman: "Whenever we get through this, I think we will look back — at least I hope we do — and acknowledge the flexibility that we displayed. I also think realizing the challenges that you can overcome and perform at a high level will be the most significant benefit to my staff and my personnel." Cavalier Corner: If you had a choice between planning for a full capacity, championship-type atmosphere event in normal times or preparing for a limited capacity event with COVID-19 protocols, which would you choose? Bauman: "No question pre-COVID. The complexities are way more and there's a lot of different challenges and many more de- tails and people to coordinate [with a normal event], but what you got at the end of those was an event that had the atmosphere and people being able to enjoy the event in a safe way with the excite- ment of competition. I miss that greatly." — Scott Fitzgerald