Summer Club Lacrosse in 2020 with COVID-19

What's up with the Summer Club season?  We are hanging on every word of every masked politician these days, hoping to catch news of the back to play date.  We've given up our Spring rec season entirely.  Some lost what would have been their first year on Varsity or their most productive year for recruiting.  Still others were robbed of that sacred milestone known as the Senior Varsity Season.  So, what is it going to be?  Sure, I can look on the upside to stay sane.  We might have avoided an injury this season.  But, if this keeps up, everyone is going to be injury prone, unless we start taking our chances and running the streets with the mask-less runners and joggers who have been spraying our lawns with potentially infected saliva droplets.  This uncertainty is not good for our well being.  The curve should be thoroughly smashed by June 1st.  So, we're ready to hear about the next practice.  The one that we won't receive an alert for in Team Snap because it's been cancelled.

I should also come out and let it be known that I simply can't do another webinar at the end of a long day working remotely from a laptop and neither can my children.  Kids are staring at a chromebook or Macbook all day long.  They're yawning in google hangouts.  Those are the really driven and focused types, because so many others are overwhelmed and shut down and are not making any effort to attend class conferences or click through the cringe inducing questions that they have to answer in order to be counted as present in attendance.  The ramifications of this Chinese Communist Party bio-Chernobyl will be manifesting for years to come like ripples in the pond, but the mental health of children is a concern here.  My son isn't going to do your HIIT Workout either.

Oh, I know everyone is doing zoom sessions now.  That doesn't mean they are effective.  People have to justify their jobs.  Look, I had 29 email opens and 43 likes!  I know.  The anxiety that instructors and coaches are feeling is being projected onto the youth and high school lacrosse players.   Elite club programs have been rapidly expanding in what was a flourishing economy up until a few months ago, renting and constructing their own properties and hiring staff.  Huge investments have been made so that clubs can operate out of their own indoor training facilities.  Some have sold their very souls to do so, but that's compost for another post.  Everyone in any sector or vertical of the workforce feels the pressure to justify their presence these days.  I get it.  Clubs are generating loads of content on social media platforms.  But, most of it is just noise.  Rehashing highlights from a year ago gets old, especially after 2-3 months of self isolation and social distancing.

BlueJeans, Zoom, Hangouts, gotomeeting, WebEx, Jitsi, Skype and other video conference call platforms cannot replace in person instruction.  Half the time, the player is adjusting their phone or laptop for a more optimal view.  Most personalities do not respond the same to a video training.  But, not to despair...this technology has its place in augmenting sports training.  If you have an archive of old film for your athlete or team members, you should be utilizing this time to review it and talk through it.  You can make prime use of your athletes' time and of the plethora of free video conference apps to share film, freeze frame, zoom in and review old plays, habits and even the film of competitors and rivals.  There's no squinting at the Sun's glare on your screen for that.  Everyone can sit comfortably indoors for a film review with the coach on google hangout.

The kids who don't have an acre setback or an estate property with retainer walls, full size goals and a bounce back for every sibling, have literally been cooped up.  I know it's hard to tell from all the team videos of stick tricks where players pretend to pass off the ball to one another, but not everyone lives in a 4 story craftsman.  It may be a minority in the lacrosse world, but some kids are working with a cramped backyard or no backyard at all.  So, they need to get out and train.  Some of the older kids are going for runs, but not everyone lives in an area where it is safe for them to do so.  Population density can vary greatly from one community to another, especially on the East Coast.  And, the younger players are all sitting at different places when it comes to their individual maturity.  Many are sliding into a sort of depression with disruptive sleep patterns and do not feel incentivized to do anything more than sleep in their team hoody.

So, is there hope?  That's what everyone is looking for, just a small glimmer of hope.  Dr. Fauci keeps moving the goal posts though, so we go from smashing the curve to waiting for a cure.  A fluid situation indeed.  Just give us a date and stick to it.  I remember back in the end of January when the CDC reassured us all that they had the testing stuff under control.  Thankfully, our own private industry stepped in eventually to pick up the pieces (with waivers and authorization) and has made fast track development efforts with therapeutics and vaccines.  That's great, but we can't hold up the Summer club season while we wait for a vaccine.  SARS never got a vaccine.  If we get one, that's great.  But, while they've been much maligned by media hacks, the therapeutics already exist.  Doctors, nurses, security personnel and others have been taking them prophylactically since January.

I'm more concerned about Fall and especially Winter training and indoor tournaments, as that's when you get trapped in a window seat at the local lacrosse bubble with the lacrosse Mom who needs to be in a bubble in ICU with that cough, to say nothing of the feverish little one she brought along for some reason.  In the Summer, the sunshine will take care of most of the virus.  Being outside, those aerosol clouds and droplets are dissipated by the winds.  Being sedentary through the Summer will result in a loss of muscle and speed and a decrease in immune system strength.  That sounds like a frighteningly insufficient way to prepare for that second wave in the Fall.  Let's do the smart thing here and let the kids play this Summer.  If anything, shorten team participation to one day so as to give the hospitality industry more time to sort out its "new normal" liability contract verbiage for check in and allow them time to sort out UV and disinfectant protocols for their properties.  Perhaps tourneys become less National and more Regional this Summer.  That's fine, but now that everyone has pushed the dates back to late July and August, let's commit to make this a definite.  If you decide to shave off a few days or cancel entirely, event organizers need to be sure they refund the clubs.  Otherwise, this ends up looking like a stimulus check absorbing tax that gets passed down to the parents of these young players.  Everyone is waiting one that green light.  Don't move the goal posts.  Let's make it happen and ensure these kids have an outlet, a place to play and for the high school players a venue to be seen by college recruiters.  Just as brands will be judged for how they treat people during this pandemic, so it is that the young athletes will remember the decisions that were made regarding their Summer Club Lacrosse season in 2020.