Covid-19 has negatively impacted everything and everyone in a life altering way. It has changed so much how we live on a day to day basis. I decided to write my article on how Covid affected Eureka High school basketball. I chose this topic because basketball has always been a part of my life and an especially big part in my parents lives. For my interview I interviewed Jimmy Rodgers who is the Varsity boys basketball coach. I tried to focus on last year's basketball season and how it has changed since then. I also looked at the difficulties of having a season among covid and how we have had to adapt to keep sports continuing.

I interviewed Jimmy Rodgers, head varsity boys basketball coach at Eureka High School about how Covid-19 affects the basketball community and season from a coaches point of view. He said ¨ Covid made it very difficult to play basketball, it was most of the year before we got to play basketball, we could not travel at all¨ this means that it was extremely difficult to play a contact sport without worsening the spread of covid. Covid also made preparations for the league more difficult, Jimmy says ¨we were not prepared to win the league and we ended up in 5th place¨. This matters because without time to get ready for the league it makes it very hard to place highly and in the end make it to the playoffs. It has been so difficult for the coaches and sports staff to keep up with all the changing rules and guidelines. Keeping the season going is so hard with all the new things you have to keep up on now. This year we finally do have a full season instead of a shortened season. Although covid is at its worst so far the staff and coaches are trying very hard to keep basketball going. I think staying open matters because some kids don't have things to look forward to. Basketball and other sports can be huge for students because it can give them something to look forward to and it is something that they have control over. Also having to keep up to a certain standard for sports can help student athletes academically. Needing to have certain grades and a limit on minutes means students that might not normally now have a reason to keep their grades up, focus in, and go to class each day.

Covid has just made simple day to day things that much more complicated and difficult. It affects everything from wearing masks to having to test multiple times a week to rescheduling based on covid and exposures. I am just happy that we are able to play this year however modified things might have to be. The fact that a virus like this could shit down so much and so many things was an unknown concept to me before Covid. The thought of everything including basketball being put off had never crossed my mind, there was no reason anything like that would ever happen. I am very thankful that among this chaos that is the new normal we are able to have sports again. I know that this can have such a big impact on people's lives. People work so hard and train so much to get better at sports that I'm sure not having sports disappointed so many people. Today versus last year is quite a bit different, people seem to be less scared about covid. Covid is currently spreading the fastest it ever has but the schools and sports staff and keeping sports open throughout this. Jimmy Rodgers said ¨We are down to 3 players this week¨ that means 9 players are out due to covid. That is an alarming number of players out, if that happened last year they probably would have had to shut down the team for multiple weeks. People are way more educated on Covid now and don't look at it with the same caution we used to, we don't fear getting covid as much. We are now tested multiple times a week if not more and wearing a mask. Even with all the precautions in place Covid spreads like wildfire.

I think this was a very important topic because of how important sports can be to the players, their families, and the community. I chose this topic because I felt that a lot of people would be able to relate to it because it happened to them and affected them and their families. I chose to interview Jimmy because I thought he would have a good point of view, also it was very convenient that he is my step dad. I felt like I could also relate to this article because I have played basketball for so long and so have my siblings and it has always been a part of our lives.

Los Angeles Times. (2021, March 11). Lost year: How high school athletes coped during COVID-19 pandemic. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-03-11/coronavirus-shutdown-high-schools-negative-impact-athletes