As some states and communities return to youth sports during the COVID-19 pandemic, many parents are trying to navigate this new experience on their own. Project Play is here to help. While some questions are best answered by public health experts based on local conditions, there are guidelines and best practices that are very useful. We will periodically answer youth sports parents’ questions in this Project Play Parent Mailbag. Got a question? Submit it in the space on the right side of this page or email jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.
Why can’t anyone get on the same page and properly communicate what needs to happen to return to sports? It’s incredibly frustrating. Our local government says one thing for a long time and then it switches.
Janet Carson
Welcome to the fragmented ecosystem of youth sports. There are a lot of inconsistent standards being applied – and it’s a source of frustration for many parents, coaches and administrators. It’s a theme of this week’s Parent Mailbag.
That doesn’t mean kids should necessarily play this fall. Public health experts should always drive the decision whether it’s safe. But keep in mind, public health departments – which often are asked to weigh in on these decisions – were ailing even before the pandemic. Now they’re completely overwhelmed. America’s public health system lacks financial resources and is losing staff by the day.
Even before COVID-10, local public health agencies had lost almost a quarter of their overall work force since 2008, a reduction of almost 60,000 workers, according to The Washington Post. The agencies’ main source of federal funding from the CDC had been cut 30% since 2003. While the country spends about $3.6 trillion every year on health, less than 3% of that spending goes to public health and prevention; the global consensus is that at a minimum 6% of a nation’s health spending should be devoted to public health efforts.
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Many decisions about youth sports are getting made in communities that don’t have public health departments or lack access to guidance from the state. Delaware County, the fifth-most populated county in Pennsylvania, is one example.
“I think the general population didn’t really realize we didn’t have a health department,” County Councilwoman Monica Taylor told The Washington Post. “They just kind of assumed that was one of those government agencies we had. Then the pandemic hit, and everyone was like, ‘Wait, hold on – we don’t have a health department? Why don’t we have a health department?’”
Imagine a place like Delaware County, minus a local public health department and with no clear rules nationally on youth sports, trying to decide whether to play. There was a “Let Us Play” rally this week in Pennsylvania outside the Chester County Health Department after the local high school league – made up of teams in three counties, including Delaware County – delayed the start of fall sports until at least October.
It’s a mess. COVID-19 has laid bare the lack of a youth sports governance model nationally and locally, something we discussed at our Project Play Summit Conversation Series event last week.
Another example of this frustration happened Monday in Annapolis, Maryland, when about 150 angry protesters gathered outside the Anne Arundel County Health Department Headquarters to call for a reversal of the decision to cancel the youth tackle football season. Then the protest moved to the Government House to request Gov. Larry Hogan to do the same.
Many parents told The Capital Gazette they were confused why their children were permitted to practice in full pads for about a month and scrimmaging for six weeks if the season was not going to happen. “We were told every week we were having a season and Rec and Parks was fighting for us,” one parent said.
County Executive Steuart Pittman addressed the angry crowd, pointing out that over 200 people have died in the county. “I wanted to see what your signs said and wanted to look at your faces,” he said. “I can’t tell you that there’s anything about this thing that’s fair. We’ve got no good rules. In this pandemic thing, nothing is fair yet.”
The governor’s office noted that the Maryland Department of Health issued an order June 12 allowing youth sports gatherings and events to resume. Though counties may implement “more restrictive rules, there is no statewide order in place that prevents youth sports from resuming,” the governor’s office said.
In other words, it’s a free for all. And it’s creating a lot of confusion and anger. In that sense, youth sports just mirror the rest of our society these days.
Is there anything close to a consensus about an appropriate return to wrestling? I’ve seen protocols from local clubs and wrestling governing bodies calling for temperature checks at the doors and masks on unless drilling with one partner only. But the sport is also characterized by lots of close contact, which has me questioning my risk tolerance.
Rob T.
Wrestling is one of the hardest sports to bring back for the points you made. Emory University epidemiologist Zachary Binney said you “could hardly design a better super-spreader event” than a wrestling tournament.
Yet two weeks ago, a three-day, indoor wrestling tournament happened in Kansas City with 2,500 wrestlers plus spectators from 40 states. Tournament organizers from the Rocky Mountain Nationals recommended that people 60 years or older and people with preexisting conditions or co-morbidities not attend the event. Even the Kansas City mayor’s office said it did not believe the tournament complied with the spirt of the mayor’s emergency order, yet the city allowed the event to proceed.
Some participants told a local television station that they came to Kansas City because the Rocky Mountain Nationals was one of the only wrestling events happening in the country. One parent noted there’s no wrestling in Texas, so they had to travel outside the state for matches.
How one high school wrestling team dramatically increased participation by putting kids first
We asked Rolla (Missouri) High School wrestling coach Marty Hauck, who we profiled as our Healthy Sport Index contest winner for wrestling, for his thoughts on how his team is very cautiously returning without any human contact. He is using a combination of guidelines from:
Hauck also has used at a British Medical Journal link that shows the risk of transmission depending on the type activity, whether it’s indoors or outdoors, and the occupancy size of the activity. “Currently, our athletes are restricted to no more than 10 in a room at a time, so we can be more than 10 feet away and we have enough dummies,” Hauck said. “We have not touched another human, and we have a ton of steps to even be in the room, such as masks and temperature and symptom checks.”
I’m confused as to whether to let my son should play sports this fall. How do I decide? What should I be looking for?
Christopher Benson
You’re not alone, as we’ve highlighted this week. Parents and decision-makers want to know how or if children should play this fall. It’s a tough decision and there’s no one-size, fits-all answers being provided by state and local governments. In response to this recent SFGate column by a parent who has no idea if his kids should play sports, Emory University epidemiologist Zachary Binney offered some advice on Twitter.
Binney said any sport can be graded by risk in three dimensions: Indoor vs. outdoor (outdoor is better), number of people playing (less is better), and amount of contact (less is better). Project Play’s Return to Play risk assessment tool evaluates more than 25 sports and physical activities based on lowest risk, medium risk and highest risk.
“Find lower-risk sports if you can,” Binney said. “Find leagues that are taking things seriously. Good markers are mask mandates, eliminating crowds and fans. Keep leagues small and local – travel ball and big tourneys help the virus spread.”
Project Play created a simple list of eight questions that every parent can ask themselves and their sports provider before returning during the pandemic. The list came from best practices by health experts and Centers for Disease Control Prevention guidance, and they align with Binney’s advice.
“Consider your own risk tolerance and situation,” Binney said. “Do Grandma and Grandpa live with you or babysit the kids? Do you or your partner have any comorbidities that would make it worse if you got sick? That raises the risks from your kids returning to sports.”
Hang in there. At some point, this too shall pass.
