CSUN On Point

The COVID-19 pandemic put many high school sports on pause for much of the last year. 

But following pressure from groups like “Let Them Play California,” officials in the state’s Department of Public Health and the California Interscholastic Federation recently announced new rules allowing all sports in California to resume play.

That includes not only outdoor sports like football, but indoor sports like basketball and volleyball. The addition of indoor sports comes after a deal with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office last week. 

The deal also calls for mandatory COVID-19 testing for all players and coaches.

Under the new rules, high school sports will be allowed to return when a county’s case rate drops below fourteen daily COVID cases per hundred thousand people. Case rates in several Southern California counties, including Los Angeles, just dipped below that level recently.

This debate over whether to let these athletes go back and play has been intense in California. 

Bradley Hensley says he co-founded Let Them Play California “out of desperation.”

He said his organization grew as limitations on high school sports stretched beyond last spring, and then through the summer.

“We got to the fall, they canceled, they postponed the season. And they kept saying ‘Oh, next month, next month’” Hensley said. “And they finally issued guidance [on high school sports] in December, and once they issued guidance, we realized the kids would probably never play again and they had no outlets.”

”We basically understood there was no voice for youth rights,” Hensley added. “We really didn’t know what we were doing frankly, and we said, “okay let’s start a Facebook page.” 

 Hensley’s  son is a junior and a quarterback on his high school’s football team. Like many athletes, his son hopes his performance on the field can help him get into college.  

“In order to get recruited,” Hensley said, “he needs to have a varsity film and with no games, there’s no film — so [colleges] don’t look at California kids.”

Hosting a sporting event is not without risk. In a guidance document about youth sporting events, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control advises that “safely hosting a large event, including sporting events, in areas where there are high levels of COVID-19 within the community will be challenging.”

But Hensley says many parents worry about the physical and mental health risks of preventing high schoolers from participating in the sports they love.  

“We have a mental health crisis with our kids because they have no outlets,” Hensley said. “The damage we’re gonna see is a second pandemic. Depression, isolation, suicide ideation and sadly suicide. 

“Sports are proven to help kids both emotionally physically, and psychologically,” Hensley added. “ They’ve lost out on that for several months.” 

Clarissa Nuñez, a cross country and track athlete at Oxnard High School, says being away from her team has been hard.“I tended to isolate myself a lot because of the pandemic and because sports were canceled a while now,” Nuñez said. “I just worked out in my room but it’s not the same when you go outside with a team.”

Some coaches wonder how much time with limited practices, training or conditioning will affect some athletes. 

“I don’t want to rush things,” said Darnell Furman, the basketball coach at Alta Loma High School in Rancho Cucamonga. “I still wanna give them as much time as possible to get in shape. Even though we wanna be playing right away I’m concerned with their fitness so I’m gonna have to watch minutes.”

Nuñez has been mentally and physically getting ready.

“I need to like get back out there,” she said. “I had to do you know yoga, I have to run more because I haven’t been able to run because of the pandemic. You know it’s been pretty hard, but I’ve been preparing myself by working out even harder than before.” 

Nuñez says sports are important to her and she’s happy to have them back.

“Sports have definitely helped me mentally and both physically,” she said. “I could definitely see the difference when I’m in the sport and when I’m not and like now when things are starting up everything’s like opening up again little by little so it’s like been bettering for myself and everyone else.”

This show was produced by the following team:

• I’Yonna Applon Kettles
• Abtin Mashadi
• Malik Patterson
• Cynthia Puga
• Jahaiara Quazi

“Touchdown!”

That’s the word that every football player wants the chance to hear as often as possible.

But no player wants to lose the chance because of a head injury or concussion that happened during the game.

According to the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, four million high school students throughout the nation suffer head injuries and concussions every year.

In response to growing concern, Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 2127, which limits middle and high school football teams to only two full-contact practices per week, and prohibits contact practice during the off-season. The new football restrictions go into effect on Jan. 1, 2015.

Ellis Green, former football player and 16-year football coach at Westlake High School, said he is already aware of how hard he pushes his players.

“It’s something you have to do in each sport, especially in football, “Green said. “However, there is a fine line when pushing a player to their limit.”

CSUN Assistant Athletic Trainer Ashley Meyer said reports of head injuries have increased, partly due to increased competitiveness, but also due to increased education among parents, coaches and trainers.

“Head injuries and concussions are such a hot topic right now,” Meyer said. “People are more aware of it, of what to look for, and how to prevent it. It is more so an increase of diagnosis than in the number of athletes.”

Green said football concussions were practically unheard of when he started coaching sixteen years ago, but now they are a main topic of concern.

“What this means is that coaches need to try to educate themselves, so that they can help educate the parents, and therefore educate their kids,” he said.

Meyer listed five key symptoms of identifying a concussion:

• Headache
• Fracture (contact head-to-head or head-to-ground)
• Abnormal presentation of a person’s behavior (ex. feeling nauseous, dizzy, taking long to respond to questions)
• Loss of consciousness
• Spotty vision

“We look at things such as long-term or short-term memory,” Meyer said. “We ask the [player] to remember a few words, and ask them few basic cognition questions. Balance is also another key thing, as they can’t fake that.”

June Dubreuil, who has three football-playing sons, emphasized the parents’ responsibility to be actively involved in their children’s safety.

“I will spend the money on helmets, shoulder pads and whatever else is necessary for my sons, even if I don’t have the money,” she said. “Football is a brutal sport and I want to protect my children.”

Green said football isn’t the only brutal sport.

“As of recent, football has gotten a bad rep,” he said. “There have been injuries in other sports like soccer, hockey and basketball, but you don’t hear about it all the time. It’s because football has two players banging their head against one another as they’re tackling. It’s a contact sport, but there’re a lot of contact sports.”

Green said the bond between a coach and trainer is important to injury prevention.

“There used to be a time where coaches didn’t like to hear a trainer’s input because they would remove a player off the game,” he said, “but times have changed now, as a coach understands where a trainer is coming from now.”

Many involved in youth sports say the benefits outweigh the risks.

“It’s really great, especially in team sports, having to learn how to depend on other people, and trust other people, and communicate effectively with other people, and work towards a common goal,” Meyer said, “and that’s a huge thing for people to learn, especially as a child or a young adult.”

“I have three boys,” Dubreuil said, “…and they were very physical, and keeping them active and in positive activities, it kept them from fighting, and it kept my china closet intact, and it was fun…and they care about winning and losing, and that’s important…They’re the men that they are because of athletics.”

“Very few [high school athletes] are going to become professional athletes, “Green said. “But all of them are going to have to go into the working world, and that’s where they’re going to show what they learned on the football field.”

Moderator: Candice Curtis

Producer: Candice Curtis

Anchor: Stephanie Murguia

Reporters: Danny Max, Bryan Ramirez, Stephanie Murguia and Gabriela Rodriguez

Social Media Editor: Gabriela Rodriguez