Tess Clark Has to Leave Pro Team Behind In Wake of COVID-19

In the onslaught of the corona virus crisis, Cardinal Forever Tess Clark had to leave her professional volleyball team in Madrid and make her way back to the United States, and in some cases escaped the travel ban by just minutes. We caught up with her this week and she told us her story.

Watch her play for Alcobendas here!

For Louisville fans, Tess Clark, who is still ranked No. 21 in the NCAA Division I in career hitting percentage, played at UofL from 2014-17. A member of the 1,000 kill club, Tess was both an offensive force with her hitting and a defensive force with her blocking. She is ranked in No. 8 in school history in block assists with 359. She is ranked fifth in school history in hitting percentage and that is with a year playing at the outside position. She made the move to the outside as a senior and is second on the team in kills and attacks and is fourth in blocks and has already broken her single season personal record in kills. She helped the Cardinals win the ACC Championship in 2015 and is a three-time All-ACC member and was on the All-ACC Freshman team as well. She earned AVCA All East Region Honors in 2014 and 2015 and was the AVCA East Region Freshman of the Year. An outstanding student, she was a fixture on the Athletic Director's Honor Roll and the ACC Honor Roll with a degree in marketing. She played her first year of professional volleyball in France, and was playing in Spain when the COVID-19 virus became a global pandemic.

Q.: Can you set the scene for us?
Tess: "I was living in Alcobendas, Spain it is eight miles north of Madrid. My club is Feel Voleibol Alcobendas. It was two weeks after the Queen's Cup. It was nearing the end of our regular season. We had two matches left and then had playoffs. The top six teams of the twelve advance into the playoffs."

Q: Were you by yourself?
Tess: "My parents had planned a vacation to come visit me. My sister came three days earlier on March 8 and my parents got there Wednesday, March 11 and it happened Thursday. They were coming just to catch my last part of the season. It was my mom's spring break and it just happened to be when everything turned into a disaster."

Q: What happened next?
Tess: "When the first travel ban from Europe announcement was made it was sheer panic. We woke up in the middle of the night (before White House specified US citizens) It was a lot of stress. My sister had school (at the time) as she was on spring break for college. I was worried about my family getting back at that time. I wasn't worried about me because he had said 30 days and I was only scheduled to be there for 30 more days. So I said 'fine, I will stay'. I am very close with my whole team so it seemed fine."

Q: But then things weren't fine?
Tess: "Then Friday came and my parents had gotten a new flight and my sister had already gone after we got her a new flight home that Thursday. On Friday, I was looking at Instagram and I saw there were so many American players going home from all the teams in Europe. I just got this feeling. My other American teammate on Alcobendas, Andie Malloy Baguley, who is from Texas and played at Nebraska, left Thursday. She just called our coaches and said, 'I can't stay, it is too dangerous and I don't feel safe'. So she left. That whole Friday, I was of the mindset that I would stay because I have a lot of friends here.

Q: But more and more Americans were leaving?
Tess: "At 10 p.m., I was on Instagram and I realized every American player I knew over here in Europe was leaving. I did not want to be the only American left. My parents were still there as they were leaving Saturday (March 14). I made the decision that I don't want the only American over here. Madrid, at the time, was getting worse with the virus, worse than the United States at the time. Staying with my team was what had kept me in the 'stay' mindset for so long. It flipped that night."

Q: What was your first move?
Tess: "I got on the phone with British Airways and they were amazing. They even got me on the same flight as my parents for the next day Saturday. My club was very understanding. My coach and the sponsors wanted me to go home the whole time. They supported me no matter what I decided to do because they wanted me to be safe. The season was still up in the air at that point. We didn't know anything. It ended up that the league was postponed for two weeks on that same Saturday. That is the day we left."

We flew out of Madrid early in the morning and arrived in London. While we were in the air from Madrid, the travel ban lockdown went to effect in Madrid. So the city of Madrid got so bad so quickly and was the hub of the virus for Spain so they shut it down. So we arrived in London but they would not let us board for America because we were arriving from the European continent. The travel ban allowed only 13 airports you could use. We thought since we were flying from the U.K. we would be fine. So we originally thought it would be fine to go from the U.K. to Phoenix, but they said no, we had to go to one of those 13 airports. We couldn't board a second flight, we had to stay in London overnight along with 30 other people from our flight. They had scanned our tickets and they said, 'no, you can't board, because we had been in Europe in the last 14 days and fell under the newer ban and it included flying out of the U.K."

TOMORROW: We hear PART TWO of her story

University of Louisville Athletics

Tess Clark Has to Leave Pro Team Behind In Wake of COVID-19

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