The Impact of Covid on Humboldt Sports
In this article, I discussed the importance of sports to kids and the impact that Covid has had on local youth sports in Humboldt County.
The Impact of Covid on Humboldt Sports
Covid has taken a ginormous toll on local sports. When the pandemic began many things shut down, including sports and it was uncertain when things would go back to “normal” again, whatever normal even means. Sports are an important part of many kids' lives which were just suddenly taken away from them. Sports are a key resource to them which allows them to have fun, exercise, make friends, and most importantly release stress. Personally, sports help release stress and forget about other things in my life. For some people, sports allow them to move even further in life such as going to college or joining professional sports teams. In Humboldt county, sports bring our community and families together and the whole community of sports was completely thrown off when Covid arose.
In Humboldt County, there was a lot of back and forth about what the protocols should be. Recreational kids sports were canceled for the remainder of 2020 after covid and for most of 2021. There was even more drama surrounding high school sports. There were many cancellations and last-minute changes which were very frustrating for everyone involved, especially the kids. In the fall of 2021, the upcoming high school sports season was approaching which people hoped would have some normality compared to the last season in which fall sports occurred for a short amount of time in the spring. The HDNL released the covid restrictions which stated that people and kids involved with sports were required to wear a mask no matter what unless participating in extraneous exercise. As for recreational fall sports for kids, youth soccer was the most popular. The Humboldt youth soccer league decided to attempt to have a season this year despite covid and not having one last year. They required players and coaches to wear a mask at all times, even while playing. There was also a dramatic decrease in the number of kids who signed up, which could be for many different reasons such as simply covid or that kids are now less interested in sports. This also caused some changes in how things were normally run, teams were now co-ed teams, and also very few teams in each age group. I decided to interview my mom, who was a soccer coach both before and during covid. When I asked her about the difference between this year and previous years she said ¨This year was totally different for everyone, I´ve never had a team be so small or have girls and boys. I think that part was a huge adjustment for them. It was hard with the masks, especially getting kids to wear them but we got through it.¨ My other question for her was what she was hoping for next year in terms of youth soccer. She said ¨I just hope that the kids will be able to play like they used to and have fun. Hopefully without masks and with more people. I think they all miss that.¨ After a semi-successful fall season in terms of covid cases, the winter sports season approached and there was an outbreak starting to occur. In hopes of keeping the cases under control, the new restrictions for high school sports required all people involved in sports, vaccinated or not, to get tested twice a week and quarantine if exposed or if covid was contracted. People who remained unvaccinated suffered from this because they had to quarantine even if they were simply exposed but tested negative. This frustrated many people who got vaccinated for the reason of trying to escape having to test. There is still little normality within current sports and even more cases occurring daily. Schools and the Humboldt county officials have not decided anything new about this outbreak but so far it looks like they are just going to try and see it through and continue with the current sports.
All of this has impacted the kids the most. Sports were an important part of their lives which was just suddenly taken away from them. Sports also open up many other opportunities for some kids such as going to college and they didn't have that resource the same as previous years. Sports are also a huge part of adult jobs which many of them have either lost or quit because of all of this. In my eyes, it is uncertain if the number of kids playing sports or how sports are played will ever be the same that it was before covid started. I think many parents are scared of enrolling their kids into sports and possibly contracting and spreading covid and also kids now are less interested in sports because of new technology and other new activities. Overall, Covid has totally impacted and changed the community of youth sports in Humboldt county and it is unsure if it will ever recover or return to how it used to be.