Scott Swanson
Imagine you’re a high school athletic director.
You love sports and you like kids. If you didn’t, there are plenty of easier ways to make money.
Your job – if not life – centers on trying to maximize the life experience for high schoolers, for many of whom athletics provide motivation to gain other knowledge and skills they need but might not otherwise be inclined to pursue.
For the last year, as been the case with many other professions to one extent or another, athletic directors have been stymied – forced to watch teens get their hopes up, then have them dashed repeatedly by edicts from the capital.
Few of us may comprehend the tensions that our governor and health authorities have felt in trying to steer a course that would keep Oregonians healthy in the face of this virus. But their strategies have adversely impacted the citizens of Oregon and many who have suffered are kids.
For them, it hasn’t been the virus, in all but a small number of cases; it’s been everything that’s come along with it.
It’s been clear for some time now that kids are less affected by the actual virus than us older folks, and while they certainly can transmit COVID to others, they’ve suffered in a myriad of other ways over the past year.
Those who haven’t done well in what essentially has been home schooling have suffered academically. Those who crave interaction with peers have suffered emotionally and psychologically, because seeing friends’ and relatives’ faces on a flat screen doesn’t come close to the vibes that come with physical contact, even at a 6-foot distance.
I’ve had coaches tell me about having brawny, physically powerful teens bawling in their offices.
When greeting formerly vivacious, fun-loving athletic young men and women in recent months, I often get a dead glance with an unenthusiastic monosyllable response, if that, when asked how they were doing. Clearly, not well.
COVID has been a tough slog for all of us, with a lot of conflicting emotions, but it’s been terrible for many of our kids.
Our story on page 14 about how some local parents and coaches finally took their players to another state to play some ball – for the first time, literally, in a year is a happy one but it’s also sad.
When we look around, we see plenty of other states that have bit the bullet and drawn their lines in the sand – and gone ahead and moved forward with life, including letting kids play sports. Their teenagers haven’t fallen like flies.
In fact, their numbers aren’t significantly larger than ours right here in Oregon, one of 15 states – all but one or two either on the Eastern Seaboard or out here in the wild West – where the coronavirus has shut down broad swaths of our society.
That’s why I’m personally encouraged that Gov. Brown and her advisors have seized this opportunity to make some changes.
That’s why it’s great to hear genuine enthusiasm from the above-mentioned athletic directors, who have been in the crosshairs of the conflicting tensions and emotions that have dogged us all.
Of course, to keep this going, we’re going to have to maintain those COVID metrics, which means doing what it takes to keep ourselves and others healthy.
This has been a long time coming, but it’s wonderful to see some happiness.