It is C.C. Grant's 22nd season overall as a member of the Coast Guard Academy football coaching staff and his first as head coach. It is what was scheduled to be the first week of practice. The Bears would have met for the first time on Monday and practiced on Tuesday.

But Grant, instead, is in the middle of cleaning his office, with fall competition at Coast Guard and throughout the New England Men's and Women's Athletic Conference canceled due to COVID-19.

"It's been odd not being in the office every day," Grant said. "You'd be here working, making sure everything's taken care of, making sure you're touching base with all the assistant coaches, all the volunteers.

"We've been working Swab Summer (at the academy) and I'm cleaning out my office, getting some of the baseball stuff out of here (Grant gave up his position as head baseball coach to become head football coach).

"I'm doing stuff right now that I would have done weeks ago, knowing that we were going to have recruits and all those type of people on campus."

Grant's team will eventually have the capability to practice. The NCAA Division III Management Council announced in July that teams will be permitted 114 days of athletics-related activity, which can take place during the fall or spring seasons. Those days do not have to occur in consecutive weeks.

Grant estimates Coast Guard will begin practice the first week of September and conclude somewhere around mid-October.

"Even then it's not going to be normal practice. Shirts and shorts. Helmets and shoulder pads eventually, shoulder pads and helmets just from a safety standpoint. Two days a week," Grant said. "We hope to get around 15 practices in.

"I don't know how many (seniors) are going to come out. I'm hoping that they will. I think there are some guys that are just diehard when it comes to playing the game. ... They can show the young freshman kids, sophomore kids, just by example, just for the sake of the program. This is a big senior class, like 20 kids, so without them it would be bare bones."

Grant said his original thought upon taking over as head coach for retired 21-year head coach Bill George was what minor things he might tweak offensively or defensively.

Grant was formerly the co-defensive coordinator under George.

"Before those thoughts even got in my head, the next thing you know you're not going to have a season at all," Grant said. "Not so much (in terms of changes). Ray (LaForte, offensive coordinator) wants to do some things a little bit different, thinking about being a little bit two back, a little less tight end. Besides that the kinks were like minor things, things like that in the back of my mind."

Grant plans to install the offense and defense this fall. He said this change would also help the freshmen, who just completed their Swab Summer activities Thursday, giving them more time to get acclimated to the academy.

He feels badly, however, for the seniors, including captains Eugene Bizer, a linebacker who led the Bears in tackles last year with 110, and John Barbera, a backup quarterback his first three seasons who was set to vie for the starting job for the first time in his career.

In addition, senior wide receiver Justin Moffat stands with 164 catches for 2,163 yards and 12 touchdowns in his career, just shy of the program's record for career yards (2,356) set by Christian Lee from 1993-96.

"I was very optimistic about the season," Grant said. "Offensively, you had to replace some people up front, but you had a lot of talent coming back. Dana (Fleischmann, now the sole defensive coordinator) would have had to replace his entire secondary but we had guys on the D-line and at linebacker. We would have had talent on both sides of the ball."

Grant was on vacation with his wife Susan and daughters Hannah and Grace at the New Jersey shore when the news came on July 17 that Coast Guard had canceled its fall sports season.

He had his wife with whom to commiserate. Susan Grant is the academy's head women's soccer coach.

"I told everyone, 'You know if you ask me, 'Are you going to have a season?' if you asked me two months ago, I would have been very optimistic.' By the time I was on vacation, if someone said, 'Hey are you guys going to have a season?' I would say, 'I don't feel good about this.' It wasn't a total surprise. I wanted to send out an email to the team, but the captains, these kids are so built on social media, Geno (Bizer) called me and he ended up sending it out. He said, 'Me and John will send it out.' I feel the worst for them."

Grant, who also had his team's baseball season canceled in the spring, is looking forward to seeing his players, who are set to begin class on Aug. 24.

"It'll be a relief just to practice something," Grant said. "It's going to be weird ... honestly to practice without preparing for a game. But if you went the whole fall without playing football, you'd be so far behind."

Coast Guard athletic director Dan Rose didn't rule out that Bears could compete on some level in the spring. The NCAA ruled that no NCAA-based fall championships would be moved to the spring, but it did not prohibit regional competition between member schools.

"All schools will wait as long as they can before making that decision," Rose said. "There's no playbook for this."

Until then, Rose looks forward to walking around campus and seeing athletes on the practice field again. He said teams will be allotted the normal athletics time slot of 4-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, should they choose.

"I think it's important," Rose said. "It's a way of looking out for the health and well-being of all of our student-athletes.

"... This really tests our resolve. It's been proven that a robust athletic experience makes a great officer. We're telling them, 'Hey you need to get out and do something every day.' But when you don't have that payoff (of competing), how do you approach getting bigger, faster, stronger?

"It's the state of the nation. This is hard. Nobody's winning right now."

v.fulkerson@theday.com