‘Let us play’: With high school sports on hold in California, athletes rally at Capitol
Caelan Bonniksen is a spirited three-sport athlete without seasons to play, without teammates and with a lot of life experiences on hold.
The El Dorado High School senior is frustrated and pained, as are hundreds of thousands of his teenage peers across California due to how the coronavirus pandemic continues to cast a considerable shadow over education. This includes how schools operate in distance learning or in hybrid on-campus form, and those who embrace and need extra curricular activities such as sports to feel a part of something.
Bonniksen, 18, set out to do his part. He created an Instagram page on Nov. 21 called “CIF_LetUsPlay” and got the word out that he wanted to share the concerns of paused seasons and set up a rally of sorts on Sunday afternoon in front of the California Capitol in Sacramento. About 200 people — student-athletes, parents, coaches and more — showed up with signs reading, “Let Us Play,” “Kids Need Sports” and more.
“We just want to be heard,” Bonniksen said. “I know there are a lot of kids who want to play and who are missing a lot. Decisions are made every day in education based on students’ best needs, but we don’t have that table right now.”
Those who attended the rally came from Winters, East Nicolaus, Placer County and Sacramento County, representing various sports. Parents and their kids made it clear that they are frustrated with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, specifically that there are no clear youth sports guidelines, that they are tired of hearing guidelines will be posted “soon.”
The California Interscholastic Federation in July pushed back the start of the sports calendar to January in an effort to keep ahead of COVID-19. The CIF, the state’s governing body for high school athletics, continues to maintain that it will not green-light activities until county health departments do. The CIF and its 10 section commissioners will lean on the side of caution, which irritates parents who argue that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is small while parents sometimes within the same school will counter: Why risk playing this sort of virus game?
“We all want a season,” said Richie Watts, the quarterback for Rocklin High. “Sports is so much more than games. It’s learning about life. We’re all missing out.”
Bonniksen’s father, Eric, is the superintendent of the Placerville Union School District, so the benefits of education and sports is a big topic at the dinner table. The younger Bonniksen wanted to remind that, “The CIF and our school districts want us to play sports. They support us being active. My dad says that there’s a fear of school districts being sued. We need a waiver that parents and athletes can sign, to protect the CIF and schools, to protect against lawsuits. It should be a family decision to play sports or not, if we can get that chance.”
This story was originally published November 29, 2020 at 3:41 PM.