Introduction

There’s no doubt that ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started, everything has been in question. One of the biggest things, for people around the world, has been sports. When the pandemic hit, most sports leagues’ seasons were either canceled or postponed, and this was no different for high school sports. As soon as the schools were shut down for the remainder of the school year, so were their sports seasons. This meant that seniors were not able to finish their last season in high school, which caused a lot of negative emotions within the Class of 2020, as well as those who were disappointed that they couldn’t finish a potential championship season, or a season, at that. 

Fortunately, since March of 2020, things have been getting better. Cases have been going down, vaccines have been going out to the general public, and people are more aware of what kind of precautions to take to stop spreading the virus. This has allowed for sports to come back. Yes, to the joy of sports fans from all over the world, people were going to be entertained by their favorite teams and star players from all sports. This also meant that college and high school level sports were going to come back, as well. 

Changes to sports seasons

Although high school sports was making a return, it wasn’t going to without a few modifications. For the most part, people who don’t play these sports know that some seasons were either pushed back or shortened due to time constraints and overlapping sports seasons. Not to mention, it would be difficult to organize team meetings and games, especially when students were fully remote. Now, though, hybrid scheduling allows for easier arrangements. Things are closer to normal and games would be able to be played.

Things that not everyone knows- what do the athletes have to deal with? What procedures did they have to go through? How different was the team environment? These questions were brought up because many do not know what it is like to be an athlete in 2021. 

Student athletes’ views

Due to COVID-19, many safety measures had to be taken in order to limit the spread of the virus. This was especially included in the sports season when players share the same equipment in the weight room. To expand on this, Jack Celebrano commented on this and said, “We [the baseball team] have been very cautious in the weight room this offseason with wearing our makes and cleaning our weights when we are done. Our preseason meeting was held on Google Meet this year instead of in-person.” When asked if virtual meetings broke up the energy of in-person meetings, Celebrano said that there wasn’t much of a difference. He emphasized that the team “always brings the energy,” and that players going onto year two and beyond are especially excited because they did not have a season the year before.

Sportsmanship is a huge part of the game. It is how teams show respect to each other and players have been learning it since their first sport. To have this tradition interrupted changes the overall experience of playing a sport, as said by Arya Shah. He said, “The experience is different because we can’t… shake hands or have close huddles or anything…we don’t feel as connected as we used to be.” The connection between teammates is a factor of how good a team does in any sport. If bonds are loose, teammates won’t care about the person standing next to them. They won’t motivate them or congratulate them if they did something good. On the other hand, if bonds are good, then the team has a better chance of going well. Plans are executed better and each teammate will have each other’s back.