Returning to Youth Sports After the Coronavirus Crisis

With the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, all youth, high school, college and professional sports seasons have been stopped waiting on government organizations to give permission to return to regular activities. We know that schools have gone to online for academics. Where does that leave youth athletes who are in the middle of sports seasons? On this week’s On Call for All Kids, Patrick Mularoni, M.D., the medical director of the Pediatric Sports Medicine program at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, provides parents and students with some tips about getting back into the sports routine.

The crisis is affecting all parts of life from the way we do business to the way children are learning. This crisis has brought up unique situations for youth athletes, especially those who are involved in spring sports. Most organizations are in a wait-and-see stage to determine when and how they can restart their seasons. The professional sports leagues are looking at unique ways to restart their seasons, but this will involve changing the structure of the season and many are coming up upon a time of year where playoffs should be going on.

Some of the ideas involve potentially having all athletes come to one location, and there have been conversations of having seasons resume without spectators but available through television. The NCAA has cancelled all spring sports and has granted an extra year of eligibility to its athletes who missed their season.

The area that is still up in the air is high school and youth sports, which may attempt to complete their seasons and could even extend spring seasons into the summer. The hardest part for athletes is that we are in a waiting period and for the children affected that has created a lot of uncertainty.