For organizers, right call has never been more elusive

The tournament organizers were committed to hosting their annual volleyball event in Orlando, Florida, the largest of its kind and what would have been the nation’s first major youth sporting event in more than two months. But even after the American Athletic Union announced additional precautions last week to account for risks associated with the novel coronavirus, teams across the country kept dropping out. For them, it was too early, and AAU belatedly came to the same conclusion and postponed the event.

“We thought we had our i’s dotted and t’s crossed, but then it came along that there were concerns we may be a little bit early doing that,” AAU President Roger Goudy said. “Not for a second did anybody think it was unsafe. But if it was questionable, then it just wasn’t worth doing it. I would never be able to live with myself if anybody got sick as a result of something we did.”

Youth sports in the age of the coronavirus is a murky swamp of questions with no simple answers. As states start relaxing restrictions, many leagues and organizers are optimistic kids will be playing games and participating in organized activities soon.

“Quite frankly, when covid-19 first occurred, I thought youth sports would be one of the last things to come back,” said Wayne Moss, executive director at the National Council for Youth Sports. “As things are progressing, it appears things could happen a lot quicker than perhaps we’d all anticipated.”

But like Goudy and the AAU, they’re all navigating hurdles and hitting roadblocks, most finding that plotting a return-to-play path is not easy. What do the evolving local regulations permit? Does the rule book and gameplay need to be altered? What’s the legal liability and what happens if someone associated with a team or league tests positive for the virus? And perhaps most pressing: Will volunteers, game officials, coaches and players even want to come back this soon?

Youth sports is a $19 billion industry in this country, according to some estimates, and this pandemic is wreaking major economic damage. The challenges mirror some of the issues that have slowed the professional sports leagues plans to resume play, but the organizers generally lack the deep pockets, have no centralized governance, an even more dire financial forecast and a giant population of participants that is both eager for an athletic outlet but also fears returning to action so soon.

“There’s this tension out there right now,” said Tom Farrey, director of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, which has been leading webinars and discussions on the topic. “Many parents are concerned about coming back. But the youth sports industry is itching to get it going again, in part because it’s their business. They have mortgages to pay,”

While many league organizers are still sorting plans and waiting for a local governments to act, a youth baseball tournament in Missouri made national headlines by staging games this month and many other leagues and teams plan to begin practices in the coming weeks.

“The idea that we’d return to youth sports before we’ve even returned to schools is surprising,” said Lauren Sauer, the director of operations with the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response. “There’s obviously a definite benefit to kids returning to sports and activity - the bonding, the exercise, the impact on mental health. That being said, sports creates to varying degrees, environments in which you’re more likely to have exposures.”

But as Goudy discovered, exercising all available safety measures isn’t going to make everyone comfortable. Last week, in a Post-University of Maryland national poll, two-thirds of Americans said they expect gatherings of 10 or more people won’t be safe until at least the end of July. That includes 24 percent who thought it would take until 2021 for such gatherings to be safe.

Goudy’s organization has been around since 1888, surviving wars, depressions and past pandemics. It now serves 700,000 young athletes across 41 sports, and summer is supposed to be its busiest period of tournaments, travel games and league play.

“We’re aware we’re going to lose a lot of teams at a lot of our events,” Goudy said. “We get that. The thing I feel comfortable about: You don’t have to come to our event. It’s strictly voluntary. It’s not like public education. If you want to come, you come. It still goes back to personal choice.”

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Even as states loosen regulations - many are using a phased-in approach, allowing business and activities to slowly resume - public health experts say the coronavirus will continue to pose a threat, particularly where large groups of people gather. That complicates matters for those who want to open their fields while reassuring parents it’s safe to do so.

Leagues and event organizers have been busy formulating return-to-play guidelines to put proper safeguards in place. But with no centralized organizing body, there is no universal blueprint. The CDC has issued this week some general guidance that it carefully calls “considerations,” but most leagues and organizations are either creating their own guidelines or looking to regional or national governing bodies for guidance - and the suggestions vary widely.

“The thing that I’m concerned about is that there will be organizations that will return to play without any particular considerations, just because they’re eager to get out there,” Moss said.

Little League, the world’s largest youth sports organization with around 6,000 baseball and softball leagues serving 1.8 million children in the United States alone, initially suspended play back in March and eventually had to cancel its premier event, the Little League World Series. Still, it remains hopeful that leagues will be able to adjust their calendars and give kids the opportunity to play out their seasons, even if it means scheduling games into the fall.

On Wednesday it issued its mitigation guidelines, a 42-page manual that covers everything from league finances to team snacks to game play. Among the virus-related tweaks: Highfives and fist bumps are off limits; masks and gloves are encouraged for coaches and umpires; players should be spaced six feet apart in the dugouts; no sunflower seeds, gum or spitting; umpires can call balls and strikes from behind the pitcher’s mound instead of behind the plate.

“Our hope is this provides some guidance for the next several months,” said Pat Wilson, Little League’s senior vice president of operations. “But one thing we acknowledge is that we may have to evolve them as time goes on. We’ll continue to do that. Some things may not be necessary, and some things will vary from state to state. We can’t predict the future.”

The U.S. Specialty Sports Association, one of the nation’s largest youth sports providers, was among the first to issue return-to-play guidelines, a May 1 memo that calls for expanding dugouts in baseball; removing soccer players who spit on the field; a parent-player ratio of 1:1 mandated for some sports, while spectators are discouraged from attending others and encouraged to wear face masks at most times. The organization is hosting a baseball tournament this weekend in Viera, Florida, for 70 youth teams and was subject of an Aspen Institute piece this week that probed whether USSSA is staging events too soon and whether its guidelines, authored by the organization’s individual sports directors, are sufficient.