At the start of the COVID-19 lockdown, most sports were cancelled, but as the months dragged on, many people wanted to get back to their normal schedule regarding exercise. This included sports. However when the different programs and teams reopened, many things had changed. Different sports now operated much differently than before.
One sport that is greatly affected by COVID-19 is football. This is because of many factors, one of which being the fact that when you are wearing a mask underneath a football helmet it can be cumbersome due to the highly aerobic nature of the sport. According to Steve Farbstein, Athletic Director at TL “I think football is the most impacted because of the sheer numbers [Players].” The amount of players highlights how hard it is to monitor people staying six feet apart, making it difficult to stay safe while on the sidelines. The locker rooms are also off limits due to COVID-19, and the gear has to be washed after every practice, or game.
Surprisingly many sports are, for the most part, unaffected. Other than some sports such as wrestling, football, and rugby, there are many sports that don’t require special protocols, because they already have social distancing, and/or limited contact while playing. This includes swimming, tennis, hockey and many more. Besides when you’re not playing, there aren’t many changes that are needed.
Tennis is a sport with mainly one or two players on each side of the court. This means that if you are playing singles, where there is only one player on each side, you don’t even need to wear a mask while playing. If you are playing doubles, where there are two players on each side, you only need to have masks on while playing. According to Gabriel Baluda, a sophomore on the Terra Linda Tennis team, “it’s basically the same thing” Gabriel continued, “the masks don’t make it much harder at all.” This shows how although people have to be wary of COVID-19 it doesn’t affect some sports that much at all.
Another sport that isn’t affected by COVID-19 as much is swimming. Due to the fact that you are in the water, and are usually in separate lanes anyways, it doesn’t affect much other than outside of the water. Outside of the water, you are required to wear a mask and socially distance like usual. According to Calvin Cunnan, a senior on the Terra Linda swimming team, “Before getting in the water there are zero differences, there may be a little less social distancing because it’s the main time for people to talk to each other but otherwise there’s nothing different.” In the Swimming team there aren’t really any big differences between the swim in the past to the swim there is now.
Although there are some sports that are affected by COVID-19, there are also quite a few that aren’t affected that much. If the players aren’t close, or touching in the sport, there aren’t very many changes that need to be made to make the sport safe.
