SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif — The fight is on to get student-athletes back on the field. Dozens of schools rallied Friday afternoon across San Diego County joining others throughout the state to hold rallies to advocate for the safe return to youth sports.
COVID-19 has kept them from playing sports for nearly a year. On Friday there were rallies held across the state to call on Governor Gavin Newsom to allow sports to resume in the state.
County Supervisor Jim Desmond said, “We can do this, we can do it safely and we can beat the virus and have our lives, livelihood and children and their activities open again.”
A group led by Desmond held a press conference at 9:30 a.m. at Torrey Pines High. He was joined by parents and many coaches from across San Diego County.
The majority of rallies began at 4 p.m. on Friday.
The “Let Them Play” group started a Facebook group two weeks ago that already has more than 30,000 followers. They say their goal is to get youth and high school sports back in play after the nearly year-long layoff due to the coronavirus.
The group's concerns range from the mental and physical wellbeing of kids who no longer have team activities to keep them busy to potentially losing out on scholarship opportunities as other states in the country are allowing kids to play.
News 8 spoke with a baseball player from Carlsbad High School who said they just want to be heard that they want to play, “It’s a lot harder, we just want to compete. I know every single athlete out there just wants to be able to play again and get back to the normal things that have been going on so, hopefully things go back to normal and we will be all good.”
The CIF did release a tier modification system that breaks down when certain sports can return based on their season and also based on what color tier the county is in. That breakdown can be seen below.