Covid-19 delivers life lessons to all-american
Standing on the brink of one final glorious moment, Delia Labatt was filled with excitement and raw emotion.
She waited to compete in the NCAA Division III Indoor National Championship. It would be the last hurrah for the six-time All-American Grantsburg track star who helped captain the Bethel Royals and qualified in the 400-meter dash and with her 400-meter relay team.
Then the Coronavirus Pandemic swept in and left Labatt standing outside, looking in at what could have been.
“I was completely devastated,” she said.
“We started crying and hugged each other,” Labatt said about the moment she and her teammates got the news the NCAA tournament had been canceled. “We were just 14 hours from competing and we knew it was our last time together,” she said.
On the bus on their way to Wake Forest University to practice for the nationals, Labatt saw her coach Andrew Rock, “Fiddling with his phone and I knew something was not right.”
It was Thursday and they were to compete on Friday and Saturday. As the bus pulled over, Coach Rock had his players unload in a parking lot, “Where we were supposed to have time to look at the sights. Then he said, “I have bad news. The meet has been canceled.”
“We were going into the finals seeded No. 3 in the 4×400-meter dash. We had been seeded No. 1 earlier that year and my mindset was to be a national champion and I was the anchor. I was ready to die on the track for my team,” said Labatt.
At the time, “Covid-19 wrecked us — it wrecked the world. It was a bomb,” she said.
But as time went on, she accepted the inevitable. “The season ended in a way I couldn’t have imagined,” she said. But today she’s accepted the fact and looks at the good times she had with the Bethel track and field team.
“It made me understand what things were really important. I had no proper goodbye to my friends or my professors who mentored me, but what was really sweet is I learned I didn’t have to focus on those moments (of regret).”
She recalled how her perspective of herself even changed.
“I remember in our last race at the conference championships in the 4×400. We had a large lead. I was the anchor and there was no one behind me. But I leaned forward to try and set the conference record and we got it. But later I was embarrassed by that because we had the event won. Now, today, I think about it being our last time ever running together and how I gave everything I had. That’s given me a new perspective about giving everything.”
While the virus brought sadness, it also filled Labatt with pride in her Bethel team.
I’m so thankful for Bethel and how it has changed my life for the better,” she said. “I grew closer to my teammates and coaches through the good and the bad and I have made lasting friendships and have been changed,” she said.
Even as the sour taste of losing the trip to nationals lingers, a new and spectacular moment arrived for Delia Labatt.
This week brought the announcement she has been nominated for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
The prestigious honor found her singled out as a finalist out of 605 student-athletes who were nominated due to outstanding academic, athletic, service, and leadership qualities exhibited during her collegiate career.
“I was really, really honored,” she said about her nomination. “Actually, when I was a sophomore one of my teammates was nominated and I thought that was really, really cool.”
When an NCAA official contacted her about the nomination her reaction was, “Oh my gosh. I was shocked.”
The former Grantsburg Pirate, a recent Bethel grad and resident of Cushing, was part of the 4×400-meter relay squad that placed third at the indoor national meet and fourth at the outdoor national meet during the 2019 season.
A three-time indoor MIAC Champion in the 400-meter dash, she recorded a first-place finish in the same event at the outdoor MIAC meet in 2018 while coming in as runner-up in 2019.
She was a strong presence in the 4×400-meter relay that was the 2020 indoor and 2019 outdoor MIAC champions.
“Delia has been so focused and so driven as she pursued excellence in everything she has done,” said Coach Rock.
“It’s been a pure joy to watch her balance being an incredible student with being one of the best sprinters in all of Division III,” he added.
Labatt is no stranger to the Bethel Royals record books. She currently holds the 400-meter indoor (:55.91) and outdoor (:55.86) records and she’s also part of both 4×400-meter relays that hold the top times for the program’s indoor and outdoor seasons.
“She is a great example of what the Division III ideal is all about. She has, on so many occasions, put her teammates before herself and that’s the legacy she leaves with us all,” said Coach Rock.
“I’m most proud and forever grateful for all she has done for us,” the coach added.
Delia’s prowess at Bethel was not limited to the track.
As a four-year member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, she was a biokinetics major with an emphasis in bioenergetics and was named to the Dean’s List all eight semesters.
She graduated with Magna Cum Laude honors and was a three-time USTFCCCA Academic All-American and Academic All-Conference honoree.
Most recently she was informed that she and her research partner successfully published their case study, “Aerobic Glycolysis Couples Metabolic Syndrome to Alzheimer’s Disease,” in the Journal of Metabolic Syndrome.
Labatt’s nomination as Woman of the Year didn’t come without a long list of other accomplishments as well.
She also volunteered at Big Brothers Big Sisters, Valentine Hills school, and Special Olympics.
Only time will tell if she lands on top of the list as Woman of the Year.
The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics will announce the winner of the award sometime this fall.
Looking back at her career, Delia Labatt remembers continuing to practice after the nationals were canceled, in case there was to be an outdoor season.
“It was emotional and exciting. I wanted to run one more time,” she recalls.
But she processed her own desires and through Coach Rock’s guidance, began to understand they needed to keep practicing, even if she never competed again.
“He encouraged us to keep practicing for the good of the underclassmen, who needed to stay active. So we kept practicing and did not give up on something that meant so much.”
Today, Delia Labatt is applying for graduate school and has her sights set on becoming a physician assistant. She’s working as a medical scribe at North Memorial Hospital and waits for admittance to grad school.
While she’s always balanced athletics and academics successfully, Delia Labatt said, “There were times when it was stressful, but I never felt I stretched myself too thin. Athletics helped me frame everything and focus on what I had to do.”
Although she still has one year of eligibility remaining due to Covid-19, she doesn’t see herself running again. “But I will always be involved in athletics. Someday I’d like to coach track,” she said.
Did the Covid-19 virus leave her with a lesson on life?
“It put a lot of things into perspective of what’s truly important. Running in nationals was something I really wanted to do. But it was my relationship in track to the people who were with me that was really important,” she said.