Bay Area athletes take to courts for indoor sports
A San Diego lawyer who won a court ruling that could pave the way for the return of all youth sports said he planned to file similar lawsuits in Alameda and San Francisco counties as well as other Bay Area jurisdictions.
On Wednesday, a pair of San Francisco high school basketball players became the first to sue a Bay Area county over its coronavirus-related youth sports restrictions, making a similar argument to the one that earned a favorable ruling for high school athletes in San Diego County. Stephen C. Grebing, the managing partner of Wingert Grebing of San Diego, said more lawsuits, including one in Santa Clara County, would be filed by the end of the week.
The legal moves come on the heels of a ruling by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Earl H. Maas III on Friday shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California was loosening its rules on outdoor sports statewide. Indoor sports still are sidelined with stricter rules before they are permitted.
The judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing indoor and outdoor high school and youth sports to resume in San Diego County “as long as the(y) follow the same or similar COVID-19 protocols imposed for competition in professional and/ or collegiate sports within the county.”
State officials have disputed that judge’s interpretation and San Diego County has moved forward under the revised guidelines released by the Department of Public Health.
The ruling drew almost immediate interest from California youth sports advocates fighting for indoor competition. They interpreted the ruling as a potential path to a longshot season in basketball, volleyball and some other sports. Grebing said Tuesday that he received 50 emails in the first five hours after the decision.
One email came Saturday from Randy Bessolo, the boys’ basketball coach at University High School in San Francisco.
“Yeah, I woke up Saturday morning angry,” Bessolo said.
Before contacting Grebing, Bessolo talked to a pair of players he had coached since youth ball. Their immediate reaction: “Heck yeah, let’s go,” Bessolo said.
The two players, junior Adrian Di Lena and Grant Lyon, grew up attending St. Stephens Catholic School, where they first met Bessolo, but have gone on to different high schools — Di Lena at St. Ignatius and Lyon at University.
“It takes some conviction to do this and put yourself out there like that,” Bessolo said. “They were a logical starting point, and both of them want to fight and make it happen.”
Their lawsuit will take a similar approach to the one in San Diego County, Grebing said. The San Diego case was modeled after previous suits that helped youth and high school sports return in other states, he added.
The San Diego case featured two arguments: youth athletes were not given the same chance to play as their peers in college and the pros, and that by prolonging the shutdown, student-athletes would suffer irreparable harm.
State attorneys presented a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the judge said supported the plaintiffs — fewer than 10% of COVID-19 cases in the United States had occurred in children ages 5 to 17.
Within five hours of the ruling, Grebing said he knew he would soon have a dozen or more new complaints to handle. Grebing said he has plaintiffs lined up in Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Marin and Santa Cruz counties. Outside of the Bay Area, other lawsuits are expected to be filed in Sacramento, Fresno and San Joaquin counties, Grebing said, totaling 10 to 15 by the end of the week.
Counties that have not held professional or college games could prove more challenging for plaintiffs, Grebing said. San Mateo County, for example, has been a difficult place to find a discrepancy in the guidelines, he said.
Santa Clara County’s strict rules might make the case there more difficult as well, Grebing added. Can youth athletes claim unfair treatment if college and professional teams were not permitted to play in the county for a period of time?
“They kicked the 49ers out,” Grebing said. “So that’s going to be a tough one, to be honest with you.”
Monday evening, Grebing met via Zoom with a group of more than 50 Bay Area high school basketball coaches, organized by Bessolo and Miramonte High’s Chris Lavdiotis. They said they intend to file lawsuits in every county in the region as part of a three-pronged approach they have modeled after the successful effort to get state officials to loosen outdoor sports guidelines.
Lavdiotis said he was going to notify his players and their parents of the legal effort to potentially recruit someone interested in attaching their name to the lawsuit, but Grebing said plaintiffs in Contra Costa County had already been secured.
Bessolo and Lavdiotis formed the Bay Area Basketball Coaches Alliance that is similar to the Golden State High School Football Coaches Community cofounded by Serra High’s Patrick Walsh. The basketball coaches said they are coordinating with the Let Them Play CA group led by Brad and Kristen Hensley of Carlsbad.