Due to the current worldwide pandemic a lot of public events, businesses, and schools around the country have been shut down or are following new rules and regulations to ensure the safety of the people.

With schools being shut down or practicing social distancing, it is hard to operate things the way they usually are. One of the most noticeable things that have been heavily affected by this pandemic is sports.

A short time into the pandemic, professional sports started to postpone their season until further notice. Sports were put on hold for months. Student-athletes were learning online and their opportunities to practice for their sport were either put on hold as well or forced to take place in a different way. School wasn’t open and neither were gyms which meant that kids had to practice on their own time.

Some kids were able to, but some kids were not. No matter what you did though, most likely you were inside for most of the day during quarantine. Since children were inside and not playing sports, they spent all of their time playing video games, sleeping late, and watching TV. Unfortunately, due to the circumstances, kids were inside when they would usually be playing local sports or just playing with friends.

So when sports were resumed after a couple months, a good majority of kids and/or previous student-athletes chose to stay inside instead of playing. The reasons could be one of many: kids didn’t feel like they were good enough anymore because they weren’t practicing, or maybe they would rather stay inside and play video games, or maybe they did not feel safe with Covid still going on.

That is another important reason for the number of decreasing student/athletes. Covid has not gone away. Parents still have concerns on whether playing sports against other towns with people you don’t know is worth the risk. Covid puts a great risk on traveling. School sports are all about traveling and going to other schools and bigger places to play in tournaments. Parents are not ready for that type of big step after being forced to stay inside for so long. If one of the players on your team or a team that your school played against tests positive for Covid, everyone has a chance to get the virus as well.

This is what scares parents the most.

Also with Covid still going on, and even though most schools have gotten back to somewhat normal school with masks, they do not get to do the same things with sports that they usually do. Big tournaments are unsafe and traveling too far could be a terrible idea because that would be spreading the virus.

When sports resumed in Hawthorne, the basketball team was required to take their temperature everyday before going into the school to practice or play. In games, when you sat on the bench you were required to wear a mask and coaches were required to wear them at all times. Another big rule was that there were no spectators allowed. Parents questioned if it was worth it for their kids to take the risk every time they played for their school and kids lost interest after being inside for so long.