BUILD COMMUNITY NEWS MAGAZINE

SPORTS OF THE TIMES

‘Everything Is Closed Down.’ The Lack of Youth Sports Is a Crisis.

Despite a glut of sports on TV, the lack of youth leagues and teams in the pandemic could cost us for years to come.

There is concern that communities like Watts are falling behind more middle-class and wealthy areas in keeping their children playing during the pandemic. Credit…Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

By Kurt Streeter Published Oct. 12, 2020

Tyrone Riley is worried. He is a basketball coach and a father, and he is witnessing firsthand the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic on youth sports in America.

He describes it as a tragedy.

Riley is the coach of the boys’ varsity team at Jordan High School in Watts, one of the hardest parts of South Los Angeles. He graduated from Jordan, grew up in one of the housing projects nearby, and went on to succeed in college basketball and then in European pro leagues.

He knows to his core the power that sports can have in changing lives and bringing communities together.

He also knows the grim reality of what has unfolded since the coronavirus spread to the United States in March.

Far from the glamour of professional and college games that appear in abundance on our screens, sports are barely limping along at the community level where children learn to love games and families come together to sit in stands and form lasting bonds.

Since March, youth participation in sports has dropped off a cliff.

In communities like Watts, sports barely exist at all.

“Everything is closed down,” Riley told me this week. Recreation centers. Gymnasiums. Many outdoor basketball courts are surrounded by fences and locked gates.

Riley has two sons, ages 14 and 10. They’re budding basketball players. But all they can do right now is train when they can, where they can. Usually, that’s in the early morning at one of the outdoor courts, far from anyone else.

Tyrone Riley, a basketball coach in Watts, playing with his sons, Dakari and Tyrone Jr. He is worried about the shutdown of youth sports because of the pandemic.
Tyrone Riley, a basketball coach in Watts, playing with his sons, Dakari and Tyrone Jr. He is worried about the shutdown of youth sports because of the pandemic. Credit…Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York Times

“I’m a coach, but the time my boys spend playing is down probably 80 percent,” he said. “I spend a lot of time wondering how we’re going to get out of this.”