While schools across the California try to figure out the plan for getting kids back to school, another issue is looming right behind them: what is the plan for youth sports?
Students everywhere lost a full season of development during the pandemic and there is still a lot of uncertainty. No one knows for sure where and when kids will be able to hit the athletic fields again for competition.
"As far as baseball, it's missed. It hurts," said Omar Gutierrez, who manages the Evergreen Mariners Little League baseball team in the South Bay. "There are days when I wake up that I feel I should be on the field."
COVID took last season away from Gutierrez's son and the rest of his teammates.
"It's not just baseball, it's the life lessons," Gutierrez said of what the kids are missing out on. "It's teaching these kids how to be good young adults."
There is a tentative fall season scheduled, but no one knows for sure if that is going to happen.
In the Alum Rock School District, the superintendent said she will likely cancel all athletics for the fall.
Meanwhile, the girls soccer team at James Lick High School wrapped up practice on Tuesday following county health protocols. The future of athletics on campus is also up in the air.
"I think more than likely the fall season is going to be pushed into the winer and have winter and fall at the same time," East Side Union High School District Superintendent Chris Funk said.
The state governing body for high school sports said it will make a decision next week with individual sports like golf, tennis and swimming perhaps being shifted to the fall. A lot also depends on current county health restrictions.
"Do we miss the season of baseball? Yes. Do we sacrifice our children? No," Gutierrez said. "I'm not a gambling man, and I'm not going to start with my son."
