High school Sports finally Return
By Marty Ness
April 16, 2021, 10 PM
After almost a year of being denied the ability to play and compete, some high school athletes got a chance to come back this spring.
Around this time last year, most high school sports programs were canceled, leaving many students without a season. 2020 graduates were especially disappointed to end the year on a bad note. This also left students with a sense of anticipation for when they could return to playing sports.
Although most counties in California were unable to resume sports last fall, El Dorado County was able to find a way. Most schools in this county were able to have shorter sports seasons starting in February continuing through the end of the school year.
The swimming coach at Ponderosa High School, Dave Stoddard, was able to give an insight into how things went this spring.
With not much time left in the year, it was hard to plan for all the sports to have a season, and schools were trying to fit everyone in. “They just kept taking all the sports and compressing them all into a shorter time frame,” said Stoddard. “They said there would be no playoffs, no sections…and each league could pick whether they wanted to have the season first or second.” This meant each sport had to choose to have a season early or late in the semester.
Despite all these complications, many athletes were happy and excited to come back regardless of how long the season was.
As a coach, Stoddard also got to see the emotions of the swimmers coming back. “As a group, it was probably the hardest-working, most focused group of swimmers we have had, ever. I think a lot of it had to do with the opportunity to do something and no one was about to complain.”
Alice Stainer, a Junior swimmer on the Ponderosa team, told me about her experience with COVID and her sport. Last spring was one of the most emotional times for Alice “It definitely sucked, the first two weeks of swimming were fun… and then all of the sudden it was just over. It was so shocking and everyone was very sad about it,” she said.
When asked if she did anything else over the summer, she said, “not really, everything in my area was closed-off and there was not much to do.”
Coming from an extra boring summer and a missed opportunity, Stainer was more than excited to come back to sports this spring. “It was definitely exciting,” she said about the prospect of coming back, “but everyone was still skeptical if we would even have a season because of what was going on.”
After interviewing multiple student-athletes, I can see why all the athletes gave more effort every day. The fear of losing something was also what gave them the motivation to keep going to practice and continue competing.
“We all knew that the next day it could get canceled so everyone went to practice and each meet with the mindset that it might be the last one of the season,” Stainer said. “We tried to make little memories from each meet to remember it. It’s kinda cheesy but don’t take it for granted.”
Raymond Sarlatte, a junior tennis player at El Dorado High School, had many similar things to say. “We only had one match last year, and I was disappointed,” he said. “There were a lot of things I was looking forward to my junior year that I didn’t get to do.”
In the case of El Dorado High School, their tennis coach quit after COVID happened. This was most definitely not an isolated event, considering many other coaches and teachers alike took a break shortly after COVID hit and never came back. This only added to the challenges that were put on the students this spring semester.
When asked about returning to sports, Sarlatte said, “I was very excited, my computer science teacher picked up the mantle of the tennis coach and was able to take it to a new place.”
He added “I really enjoyed this season, I got a lot better just as a player. I didn’t win all my matches…but I had fun.”
This was similar to how Stainer felt, -they both seemed like no matter what was offered they were excited to be there. Both coaches and athletes were ecstatic to have a season, even if it could get canceled the next day.
