Cancelled sports leave young people struggling
With youth sports cancelled due to COVID-19, young people are experiencing a variety of challenges.
Market research company Ipsos found 74 per cent of children were feeling lonely due to cancelled youth sports, and 72 per cent of parents also reported their child was showing signs of being less physically fit.
Walker Homesite Athletic Club coach Mike Hugall at a batting practice. (Photo provided by Mike Hugall)
Melissa Lepore, 15, plays soccer for local league Windsor TFC. She said the time away from soccer is tough.
“It kind of makes me feel sad in a way, because I’m not playing the sport I love. It is just taken away,” said Lepore. “That’s the thing I go to when I have nothing else to do and I’m just feeling out of it. I go there and then I have fun and it just gets everything off my mind.”
Participation in team sports during adolescence is found to improve the mental health of young people who have experienced adversity in childhood, according to JAMA Pediatrics.
Tom Laporte is the president of Riverside Minor Baseball League. He said the closure of youth sports could have a long-term effect.
“Children, especially at the ages that we have them, eight to fifteen or so, they learn so much about interaction with people,” said Laporte. “Not having that interaction is really going to leave a hole in their development.”
Young people are also struggling to keep practicing during lockdowns. This is something Mike Hugall, coach for Walker Homesites Athletic Club, is addressing.
“We’re setting up Zoom classes where we’re teaching kids the theory about the game of baseball and the theory behind the sport,” said Hugall.
He shared an example where an assistant coach taught defensive positions on a whiteboard via Zoom.
Despite these challenges, Hugall said he is confident youth sports will return.
“You can’t take away youth sports because kids still want to play the games. Kids still want to have fun.”
What is else being done for youth sports:
Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart Foundation donated $12 million to more than 700 sport organizations across Canada in the final months of 2020.
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