Good Thursday morning. We were hoping to discuss this topic yesterday, but the power outage in the upper Valley prevented us from posting anything for you. Before we get to it, though, a quick shoutout this morning to both of the upper Valley’s power utility companies – Puget Sound Energy and Tanner Electric Cooperative – for their hard work yesterday. PSE of course for getting crews out here as quickly as possible to get the lines repaired, and Tanner for utilizing their social media channels – Facebook and Twitter – to provide their customers, and frankly the entire upper Valley community, important information that helped everyone understand what the situation was and give people an ability to make decisions to protect themselves and their families. Outages of this type have in our community in the past lasted for as long as several days, so both utilities’ efforts are much appreciated by all in our community. A salute to all of you on this Thursday.
Now to our discussion about Arizona. In one of two major stories involving high school sports on Tuesday (the other being the Kingco Conference’s decision to delay the league’s sports restart to March 1), the association overseeing high school sports in Arizona, the Arizona Interscholastic Activities Association, voted to reverse a decision they had made last week to shut down the winter high school sports season in the state amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, including basketball, wrestling and soccer. That initial decision met with serious pushback from athletes, coaches and parents, and in fact there was a demonstration outside the AIA offices on Tuesday prior to the meeting, underscoring that pushback. There are some lessons here for both Arizona officials and also those of us in Washington as we look to restart youth sports here.
First, let’s talk about why Arizona officials decided to shut things down in the first place. The state is dealing with a huge spike in confirmed virus cases, with over 11,000 reported just on January 4 in Arizona. While those numbers have gone down, the overall numbers are still very high in the state. Hospitalizations are still a big issue as well in Arizona, as are death counts as well. Most of the trouble has been in the Phoenix area and suburbs, but Tucson and its surrounding areas are also having challenges according to the latest numbers from the state.
The AIA’s medical staff had recommended to the board a shutdown of sports, and the board voted 5-4 last Friday to uphold that recommendation and shut it down. As to that decision, based on the numbers being reported, we believe the association had made the right decision. However, they ran into a couple of issues which ultimately forced the reversal on Tuesday.
-Timing and lack of notice: The decision was made abruptly and with little to no warning for athletes, coaches and parents, all of whom were in preparations for the upcoming season. Arizona is scheduled to start play January 18 after having had the winter sports season start delayed due to the pandemic and the fall sports season having started late as a result. This left likely more than a few folks feeling like the rug had been taken out from underneath them, and there was also the issue that fall sports were completed successfully so why shut us down? But there was an even bigger issue we think at play, too.
-Non-school (select/club) tournaments: The AIA’s initial decision to shut down high school sports did not apply to other youth sports activities, and that was also a point of contention for some, that youth select/non-school tournaments were being allowed to continue. And that was the case this past weekend, with that big club softball tournament we had coverage of for you with the team from Bellevue and that Cedarcrest High School player on it. These tournaments are drawing teams from all over the place, mostly California, but a lot of Washington athletes have been, and are expected to be in the coming weeks, in the state for events. The state’s governor, Doug Ducey (R), has not indicated that he would shut any of this down, but he is the one, along with his state’s Department of Health, that has the power to do so. Considering the case situation, and the potential (although not official yet) that that much-talked about “UK variant” of the virus could be floating around down there, it is our view that the governor and his DoH should, at minimum, put youth sports, including the tournaments, on pause for the next 30 days to allow the case counts and hospitalizations to level off a bit. While the overall case counts and what not show that kids are not getting hit as bad as adults, you have the issue of coaches and especially game officials to think about. But there is something else.
We’ve talked about it before as it pertains to this topic of Washington athletes heading out of state to compete – they risk potential spread importation when they return. And with the tournaments having drawn teams from out of state, a lot of them from California, that spread importation piece is a very important one right now.
In hindsight, we wonder if the AIA, instead of having made the initial decision they made – which we would have voted yes as well if we were on the board, albeit reluctantly – that they instead asked their medical team to go to the governor and ask him to put everything on pause as we just discussed, then perhaps we are not here discussing this issue right now. Because numbers do not lie, and we have seen Arizona’s dashboard. It’s a mess down there.
We have long supported the idea of allowing kids to play, kids to chase their dreams. We know the data and we know about the issues that are popping up involving athlete mental health and a rise in teen athlete suicides due to them not having that outlet available to them. But we also have long supported the notion that this has to be done responsibly.
The Aspen Institute, an organization tracking the youth sports restart around the country, published an op-ed back in December in USA Today suggesting the restart has failed and offering solutions to fix it, mostly calling on federal officials under the soon-to-be administration of Joe Biden to take the lead on that. Here in Washington, the lessons of what has happened in Arizona should not be lost on youth sports supporters here.
What happened in Arizona is a reminder of why it is we believe that any youth sports restart solution in Washington has to follow this template: that it comes with all stakeholders, whether that be the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, groups representing club/select sports programs, groups representing recreational youth sports organizations such as the Little League program, coaches, athletes, parents, etc. being involved in its framework, all stakeholders having a say in the discussion, all stakeholders agreeing to it and living under its terms. Because a restart isn’t going to work right if everyone isn’t on board. All kids, whether they be a star high school football player, an elite youth basketball travel player, a first-grader in coach-pitch in Little League or just learning the fundamentals of soccer, or just a kid out to play sports because he or she wants to get some exercise and enjoy the time with his or her friends, deserve to be back on the field and soon.
We hope that the situation in Arizona and what transpired down there is a reminder to our youth sports advocates in Washington to continue to push for a broad-based restart plan that protects all kids and families in youth athletics, not just those with the financial ability to go it alone.
About Rhett Workman
Rhett Workman is the editor of the Snoqualmie Valley Sports Journal. Workman is a veteran sports journalist, having covered Snoqualmie Valley sports for nearly a decade with the Snoqualmie Valley Record newspaper before starting up the SVSJ. Workman’s coverage has earned the support and respect of Valley coaches, players, parents and fans, and the SVSJ continues the standard of coverage that Workman brought to the Valley Record.View all posts by Rhett Workman →