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March 1, 2021 - Epoch Times
19:20
California’s Student-Athletes Face Mental Health Struggles Amid State Shutdown
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Time Text
When the shutdowns happened, the schools were shut down and the sports got impacted.
Can you tell us what happened?
Taking the safe side is shutting everything down.
The problem was, hey, just do this for two weeks.
And then two weeks went into a month and so forth.
And all of a sudden, boom, it happened.
We were at home.
We were distance learning.
Was the approach different in California versus other states?
There's 40 other states, I believe, that are open and playing competition, sports, and they're not seeing any cases out there.
And do you think kids would fall behind in California compared to other states that are open?
It's a fact.
And unfortunately for a lot of kids, those college coaches simply went to the other 40 states to get their recruits because there was senior film to evaluate.
And in terms of the numbers and the guidelines, what is the logic behind these numbers?
I don't know.
I think that's the most frustrating thing is that there's usually never any answers to why they picked these things.
And what about coaches?
Do the coaches want to play?
Absolutely.
The social-emotional health of your athletes versus the physical health of the possibility of getting COVID and what that could mean, it was a really tough thing to balance as a coach.
I'm worried about that kid was just like me, where high school was going to be his last game.
After nearly 12 months, California eased certain guidelines to resume high school sports.
My guests today are California State Assemblywoman Lori Davies and Mission Viejo High School coach Chad Johnson.
Today, they discuss the impact of the pandemic on student athletes and the call to reopen youth sports.
Welcome to California Insider.
Lori, Chad, it's great to have you on.
Welcome.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you.
This is a very important topic for us to discuss today.
Kids and sports, sports in California.
When the shutdowns happened, I guess the schools were shut down and the sports got impacted.
Can you tell us what happened?
Yeah, about early March of last year, we had rumors and whispers that we're going to shut down.
And I actually warned my class that, hey, this might happen.
Be prepared to go online.
And we were already set up with our Google Classroom.
So I just want to make sure they know how to do it.
All the codes were good.
And all of a sudden, boom, it happened.
And we were at home.
We were distance learning.
And then the sports, same thing.
We weren't allowed on campus at all.
So we actually did a virtual spring football where we went all online.
Booster Club ended up buying a couple of online programs that we could use to do it.
And we had like virtual practices where we would use an online platform like Zoom and the quarterback would call out a play.
All the receivers had access to the Zoom where they could annotate and draw on their routes.
The defensive guys would be on the other side of the Zoom, dropping into coverage and taking their little markers, almost like a telestrator, and dropping how they would cover the route.
Coaches would come over the top and say that's correct or incorrect and all those things.
So we actually had a pretty productive spring ball trying to get ready for the season that now looks like it's going to happen.
Was it more like a video game?
100%.
That's exactly what it was.
It was like our best way of playing Madden, you know, against each other.
So yeah, absolutely.
Laurie, on the regulatory side of this, do you have any thoughts on what happened at the state?
Well, I think, you know, there wasn't any information there.
I think that was really the problem.
And so, you know, taking the safe side is shutting everything down.
The problem was, hey, just do this for two weeks.
And then two weeks went into a month and so forth.
And I think it was just, you know, trying to figure out, you know, exactly what's causing it and how to prevent it.
And so I think, you know, with the safety, you know, we saw the numbers.
We saw people getting them.
We saw the deaths.
And I think that was really the only thing they could do at that point until they had, you know, more information, which kind of came around a little bit more in the summertime.
But I think they did what they thought they had to do at that time.
And what about the impacts?
So as you guys went online and then the season was gonna start and the season didn't start up until now, right?
Right.
I mean the first impact you have to say is last year all the spring athletes lost their spring seasons.
So the baseball players, the track runners, they all lost their seasons and then all the seniors lost their graduation.
There was no graduation that I know of around this area.
So that was the first part that I think was an impact on our students.
As a senior, those months leading right up to graduation, there's a lot of fun events, including prom and senior graduation, all of the awards, baccalaureates, and all those things that happened.
Those things were all gone.
We had a simple drive-through graduation.
That's all we thought we could do based on what was going on.
In the summertime, you know, it came and, you know, all the kids try to do the best they can.
We actually were allowed to have one day of summer football.
We did a ton of work and we had one practice.
It was great.
And then we got shut down again.
And then we were, you know, back on there online, meeting with kids, Zooming, and they were sending us their workouts, videotaping themselves, do, you know, push-ups or whatever they could get their hands on because, you know, the gyms are shut down as well.
So not only was our gym shut down, but 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, everything around was shut down as well.
So try to get those guys working out.
It was problematic.
You saw the home gym market skyrocket.
A dumbbell was $20 going into COVID. Now it's $120 coming out of it because of supply and demand, of course.
And then now we're talking about trying to finally get a chance to play.
So hopefully these kids will get what they've worked so hard to receive.
Now, was the impact different?
Was the approach different in California versus other states?
And do you think the athletes are impacted differently in California?
I don't think the athletes are impacted because they're not open here.
But that was kind of the whole thing is let them play because we've already seen the results.
The science is there.
There's 40 other states, I believe, that are open and been playing competition, you know, sports, and they're not seeing any cases out there.
So that was really what we're trying to bring to the governor and say, listen, you don't have to worry about it.
We've got the science right here.
Here are the stats.
You know, please let us let them play.
Let's open up.
And do you think kids would fall behind in California compared to other states that are open?
It's a fact.
And I'll just talk about recruiting.
So, you know, we take great pride at my high school, as most coaches, of trying to get their kids out.
What I mean by that is get their kids out to colleges, get them some scholarship money to be able to go to college for free or half the price or whatever the case may be.
Well, when you're communicating with coaches at the college level and you're trying to push your athletes like, Coach, you know, right now he's below the offer line.
We need to see senior fill.
And we couldn't provide that.
We were like, well, here's him working out.
Here's him doing push-ups.
Here's him sprinting on his own with a videotape.
And unfortunately for a lot of kids, the colleges, because there were, like someone said, there was 40 other states playing.
So those college coaches simply went to the other 40 states to get their recruits because there was senior film to evaluate and watch.
Where the kids in this state, along with the other 10, Right?
Didn't have that opportunity, so I would say absolutely yes.
And now, what about parents?
Do parents want their kids to play for the most part or are they more concerned about the virus?
Now, I can tell you in my District 73rd, when we get calls, It's either EDD or it's getting the kids to play sports.
That's actually how important it is to them.
And it's, you know, it's getting them back, but we're dealing with the mental health issues.
And I think that's really the biggest problem is, for some reason, no one's really addressing this.
I mean, we see it, but I don't feel the administration's addressing the fact that you've got kids that are, you know, depression is up, suicides are up.
Drug overdose is up.
And this is because these kids, you know, they need that social gathering.
They need the time, the sports.
This is what they live for, especially these athletes.
This is what they train for.
And it's devastating just to watch this.
And we need to get them.
That's what we need to get them at.
But I really feel it's like they've been left behind.
And no one's listening to the fact that you have to sit there and weigh, you know, mental health, physical health.
Financial help.
And one part that's really important is they're all saying, you know, we're trying to do things and make sure that we can help those that are financially challenged.
Well, a lot of these students come in these scholarships to get to college because they don't have the income or their parents don't have the income to get them there.
But this is really hitting them big time.
And just like also a lot of these teams were going and they're playing across state.
And so those that have money can do it great, but those that don't aren't able to.
So everything they talk about, equality, it's the opposite when you look at what they're doing to these students.
There's nothing good about this.
And what about your program, the parents that are in your program, what is their feedback?
I already got like 20 texts today.
My phone keeps on blowing up even as we're talking right now, and most of them are my parents, how excited they are.
There was one right there, how excited they are about getting back.
You know, they're so excited about, you know, one dad texted me today that he's literally crying, you know, because his kid's a senior and he's able to actually play.
You know, so I think the parents are very supportive.
And there's a couple of parents that were concerned because they had maybe an elderly family living at home and there's an issue that could get transmitted.
But I would say the large majority of my players' parents are very excited about the news.
And out of how many?
Two out of?
I would say two out of.
We have 115 players in the program right now.
And what's been your approach in terms of some of the schools are shut down and you guys continued practicing?
Did you guys come up with a plan in the beginning?
Yeah.
So, I mean, the plan changed kind of based on the numbers.
As the numbers, you know, went up, the restrictions went up as well.
The numbers dropped, the restrictions loosened.
It went from anything from nothing at all.
You're at home, school is shut down, you cannot be on campus at all.
No weight room, no conditioning, nothing.
To you can condition only.
To you can condition and lift as long as you're in pods of nine and we had to move our weight room outside.
To you can use a football in your pods of nine.
To now you're going to be in pods of 20 and you can go against each other.
So the rules kept on changing based on the numbers.
But yeah, I mean, at times when the numbers were high, there was nothing.
It was completely shut down.
Now the numbers are lower.
We're able to do more things.
And you took some precautions, like you were concerned about your kids getting the virus, right?
Yeah, I mean, so we were very concerned about it.
You know, I was concerned about it.
You know, my father himself, who's around, my mom's not around anymore, but he has a heart condition.
That he, you know, puts him at risk of that.
So, you know, I was even more concerned about being around him.
My wife's also pregnant, so I was concerned about that, you know, because no one really knew how COVID affects a pregnancy.
And so, you know, very concerned.
So what we did at Mission Viejo, as well as all the high schools, is It is daily temperature checks upon arrival for every athlete.
There is a series of questions that we asked every single athlete, and we made basically a booklet, and we broke the players into pods of nine, so the players' names were on the left, and all the questions were across the top, and the temperature was on the right.
And it was like, you know, do you have a temperature?
Have you been feeling sick?
Sore throat?
Cough?
Nauseated?
Have you lost taste?
Can you smell?
And just, you know, no or yes.
And the coach had to mark it off before practice started every single day.
If a player had yes to any of those questions, after yes to those questions, they were immediately sent home.
And, you know, my program, we demanded them to go get a COVID test, in which, you know, we did have a couple of athletes that did end up coming back with a positive COVID test, and we followed the proper quarantining rules with 10 days and contact tracing and all those things with the local county health department.
So for us, it's been, you know, a very good situation.
We're on top of it.
It has not spread, and we hope to keep it that way.
And in terms of the numbers and the guidelines, how do they work?
Well, today really was the governor came out and put some new guidelines.
And what that is, is you can't, right now, in order for people to do this, you have to have 14 cases or less out of 100,000.
And so right now Orange County is at 20.
They get their new stats every Tuesday.
So they're looking, you know, they're looking hopefully that the numbers are going to drop.
I can tell you that LA County and Riverside, they're still fairly high.
So they're not going anywhere right now.
So that's really what our goal is right now.
And that's what, you know, that's what we're looking at.
It's not the purple tier.
It's now this number.
And what is the logic behind these numbers?
I don't know.
I really don't know, you know, who, you know, where these numbers come up that 14 is okay, but 15 is not.
And I think that's really the concern that we have is, you know, if we're going to open, we need, you need all that information.
So what happens if, okay, you know what, you've got, you're at 13 and all of a sudden you're at 15.
You know, 14 or 15.
It means you have to stop everyone.
I mean, is there a leeway of maybe like 15 to 20?
There's got to be some type of, you know, range there.
You can't just have that one number.
Especially, I think that's the most frustrating thing is that there's usually never any answers to why they pick these things, you know, the different tiers that they pick, you know, and where do they come up with this number?
Do you think if we're taking the right precautions, it might be more effective than the numbers?
Is that That's a great question.
That number, all those things are above my pay grade.
But I definitely think that what we have done in my experience from March 13th until now, February 19th or 20th, whatever it is today, I think it's worked.
We haven't had a massive breakout in my program.
And we've done a lot of things.
Even in a pod of nine, if you're lifting weights indoors, technically there could be a spread and there just hasn't been.
And we lift hard and we lift for a long time.
Generally, we're in the weight room for 90 minutes a session.
So it's way longer than the 15 minutes of exposure that's been set forth by The health agencies.
And we haven't had an issue.
Knock on wood, we hope it continues, but I'm very confident that we can move forward with proper precautions, proper testing, and let these kids play a season.
So there's these numbers, the thresholds.
What if the numbers go down and then they come back up?
Does it mean that the players just start playing and then it gets shut down?
How does it work?
Well, nobody knows that answer.
They basically came today out and just said, this is your number, but they didn't give us any more information, at least not that I know of.
So we don't know.
And I think that's just it.
We need to have some type of consistency and structure.
As we've watched this whole year, they keep moving the goalposts on what is it in order for us to meet that criteria so that we can open up schools and we can open up sports.
So they need to be consistent with it so that we know where we're at one day, you know, because the next day it seems to change.
And in the legislative body, do you guys actually get any information that the public is not getting that we can...
No, we basically hear what everyone else is hearing maybe 30 minutes prior, and that's about it.
And what about coaches?
Do the coaches want to play?
Absolutely.
And here's the thing.
You know, not everyone goes and plays college sports.
A very small percentage actually do.
You know, some high schools, that percentage is much higher, like ours, but at most high schools, it's a very, very small percentage.
So I'm not really worried about my kids are going to go play at Oregon State and UCLA and Stanford and Cal.
I'm worried about that kid was just like me, where high school is going to be his last game.
And they've probably worked their tails off.
I know they have.
For four years, they probably didn't play a ton as a junior because we're a pretty good football team and maybe they couldn't get a lot of playing time.
So their senior year is finally their year.
Finally their year to play.
Finally their year to get out there.
As soon as our season's over, it's going to be the last game they ever play.
And those are the kids which are, I think, in the majority, I think the minority is the kids that go on to Stanford and UCLA and USC and play.
The majority of the kids, their last high school game is their last game of their career ever.
And for those kids, that's why I am so excited to play a season.
And Laurie, what can people do about this?
Well, they've started Let Them Play, and it's really blown up.
I think there's a couple hundred thousand.
And I sent a letter to the governor, again, showing the guidelines.
We were able to sit down and do Zoom with a few coaches about a month ago.
So we took the guidelines.
We asked them, you know, let us open up.
Let Them Play has really been strong.
They had a rally at the Capitol last week.
It was quite amazing.
They had boxes full of 10,000 letters from parents, you know, signing saying, please let our kids.
And then they had some great testimony from a female who was a soccer player talking about, This was her year.
She was really excited, and once they took that away from her, she started doing drugs, partying, suicidal thoughts, and how it was affecting her.
There was another young man saying that he would be the first child to go to college with this, but he's probably not going to have that.
The coaches were coming up, and you know what?
These coaches, they're not doing it for themselves.
Honestly, these are their kids.
And they're watching their kids just breaking down and depression.
And so the coaches have been so fantastic.
And the parents, I think we've all just felt helpless.
There's nothing we can do.
The stats are there.
Why can't we open when all the other states are open?
And so let them help.
I think really, I'm sorry, let them play really made a big difference.
I think kind of put the pressure on it.
And then the letters.
And again, I think the stats are there.
So they can't, you know, say science isn't there.
Chad, do you have any final remarks?
Yeah, I think the whole time of balancing this, as was mentioned earlier, the social-emotional health of your athletes versus the physical health of the possibility of getting COVID and what that could mean.
It was a really tough thing to balance as a coach.
As I mentioned earlier, we saw these kids every single day breaking down, sometimes on Zoom, tearing up, getting emotional.
And now that you're able to have a season, Obviously their spirits are lifted and they're hopefully snapping out of maybe some depression that they slipped into and I'm just really excited to be able to be there and provide it for them.
You know, I just have something for the governor.
I just really hope that we can be consistent, that we don't keep moving the go-pulse, and give us an opportunity to try to move forward and stay with that.
So, you know, let them play, obviously, and I just think we're going to see such a turnaround again, and this way we can start watching these numbers go down in regards to mental health.
Well, thank you.
Thank you, Lori.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
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