California Sports: Sunsets And Football Spell Spring For Fans

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, CA — Across Orange County, Friday night football has returned. As the weather warms up, parents of young athletes realize that things are really different. Gone are the big jackets and wool hats, in their place, shorts and t-shirts as the very few fans enter high school stadiums to watch their children play. The weather may have changed, but the sentiment behind watching athletes take the field has not.

Right now, most players and parents are just excited to get back into the game that they love, pandemic or no. Soccer plays on while track and field athletes practice. Cheerleaders are cheering at multiple sporting events, inside and out. The atmosphere during competition is electric. After over one year without games, these moments of glory on the field will not be taken for granted.

Still, there is a price to playing amid a pandemic. Santa Margarita High School football was seeking an alternate opponent for this Saturday's game after an opposing team tested positive for covid. While not playing in a bubble, per se, these things happen.

So goes the strangest season in California high school football history.

Recently, El Modena High School played its second football game of the season as more California counties ease coronavirus restrictions and life in the nation’s most populous state inches back to normalcy.

California parents are some of the last to the fields after a year of crying "Let Them Play" from the rafters. On March 5, all bets were off. Sports across the state were allowed to return.

As more residents across the Golden State have vaccinated, and coronavirus numbers have plummeted, rules surrounding youth sports have varied from state to state — and sport — keeping athletes and coaches often at the edge of their seats for months, the AP says.

Read: SoCal Sports Advocates Challenge Gov. Newsom To Let Kids Compete

The issue with returning to youth sports was more than just the need for competition play. It was a mental-health ticking time bomb, according to California state Rep. Laurie Davies. Davies and other state legislators wrote an open letter to Newsom in January expressing their concerns about the mental health of young people who can't turn to sports to help them through the pandemic.

Davies wrote that she was worried about "losing an entire generation of students," a concern expressed by O.C. Supervisor Lisa Bartlett and the Let Them Play coalition, which said they would not back down until all youth sports were reopened.

In California, football players must follow restrictions that public health experts say are needed to keep youth athletes safe.

At the game played on March 19, Modena guard Michael Casares screamed every time the team gained yards. Coaches got loud too — though sometimes to remind kids to spread out along the sidelines.

“This last year has been different obviously with the pandemic. It’s been up and down for the kids. We tried to keep things as normal as possible,” said head coach Matt Mitchell.

This season is not without changes to the normal football routines. The school gets to play six games — four fewer than the pre-pandemic season. Gym equipment has been moved to an outdoor racquetball court. Players can’t enter the locker room. And no team meals before the game, either.

With no access to indoor facilities during that recent game athletes, rested during halftime on the concrete floor. But tight end Tom Leonard said he and his teammates didn’t mind the inconvenience.

“A lot of us didn’t think that we would get here, so it feels awesome just to have a chance to play, even only six games,” said Leonard.

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