Let Them Play: Youth Sports in Fort Collins
Flashback summer 2019, you’re driving through your neighborhood. You look to your left, kids are playing in the field, but they’re not alone. There’s folding chairs with proud family members sporting their child’s team’s colors, adults wearing black and white striped shirts facilitating the action. It’s a sporting event, organized sports. Now return to the now, imagine that same drive, what does it look like? There aren’t kids there, in fact there’s no one. Your county decided it was no longer safe for the kids to play, so they’re not. That is life now in Larimer county.
COVID-19 has affected everyone’s lives over its year-long slow, cruel terror of the world, and another victim that has succumbed to it’s wrath is youth sports. To some, kids missing out on a season or two of their youth league team is just another unfortunate happening, but to those who really understand the importance of youth sports and the impact it has on the young athletes who participate know that it is more than just a recreational sport.
For these kids they are not only missing on a few hours of fun every week, but they are missing out on the socialising and the interaction with their peers. In a climate like the coronavirus-filled one we live in now, students of all ages are missing out on important events, moments and memories with friends that couldn’t be made. Your youth is where you grow the foundation of your life based on the impressions made from society and those who are in it. These kids who are missing out on spending time with peers in classrooms, are now missing out on time to socialise on the field or court as well.
Kids gain more than just social and communication skills while participating. According to the National Alliance for Youth Sports kids can learn lifelong values and develop important character traits “which can create a positive impact in their lives.” Sports teach kids confidence and self esteem when they see their hard work pay dividends on the field. Sports are also a stress reliever, and help kids develop healthy habits and promote a healthy lifestyle.
With the flu season in full swing and the current spike in COVID-19 cases, many counties are shutting down their youth sports programs and keeping these kids inside and away from their friends and their newly formed passions. Some parents in Larimer county have decided that their kids would no longer sit on the sideline and have moved their kid’s sports participation to other parts of the state. In a report done this past week in the Coloradoan, Peak2Peak, a youth wrestling organization, held a 700 participant wrestling tournament this past weekend in Ault, Colorado. One parent of a youth participant even drove his athlete the near 50 miles from Brighton, Colorado to where the tournament was being held so he could participate in the weekend tournament. These parents feel that not only are their kid’s safe, but they are as well as these athletic organizations have worked with the local health departments to maintain a safe environment to follow and comply with all COVID restrictions.
The other side of this complex coin that is the relationship between COVID-19 and normal life is that there are certain health risks that come with these sporting events being played. The CDC has created guidelines for how to safely return to sports for youth athletes and contact sports, like wrestling, are not sports that tend to follow those guidelines. The CDC recommends outdoor settings, enough room for the participants to be spaced out and even more room for the spectators to socially distance. That is very obviously difficult to do with 700 people in one gym.
However, Katie O’Donnell in her interview with the Coloradoan has said that the youth sports organizations that are actively holding events for these kids have spoken to their local health departments and they do not seem to be causing outbreaks.
These tournaments and other youth athletics are a way for the youth of America to return to some type of normalcy. It has been seen that it can be done safely and effectively and that these kids can get the experience that so many of them have been longing for. Let the kids play.
