Corona Effect On Student Athletes

This story was reported and written by a high school student in The City College of New York (CCNY) Early College Program.

“COVID affected my school year by ending everything abruptly,” Chloe Marte said. The 18- year-old student-athlete at The City College Academy of the Arts (CCAA), a middle and high school in Upper Manhattan, lost her chance to play basketball and softball in her senior year. “It made me feel bummed out because it happened out of the blue. Finding out that senior year seasons weren’t happening made me feel disappointed. It felt like I had been robbed,” she said.

On March 13, 2020, student athletes all across the city got the news that spring seasons were being postponed because of COVID-19. This news hurt. The spring sports — softball, baseball, volleyball and soccer — were about to start. But the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) announced it was canceling all sports for 2020 and possibly all of 2021.

Chloe Marte had hoped to play for at least the softball season. A leg injury had sidelined her during the basketball season. “I was counting on those seasons because I was injured for basketball,” she said.

The quarantine took away the sports season and required everyone to stay home at one point. That meant the student athletes couldn’t even go outside to play in the park. It also kept students away from their friends and teammates. “Not being able to socialize, and have games around the city, I’m just at home sitting in front of a computer, which is new to me,” Tiana Velez said. The 18-year-old CCAA senior plays for the girls’ volleyball team and started playing when she was in the seventh grade. But she described her time at home as “new” because she is taking classes at home instead of a school building.

COVID showed us that life will always take a turn. You just have to be strong and try to continue to move forward. The negative things came, like not being able to play and not having human contact. But quarantine brought out positive things for people. “One hobby I developed during the pandemic was baking. I have always baked but never really had the time. So, being home all day really helped me show my creative side in the kitchen,” Tiana Velez said. Baking was her volleyball, and she explored her creativity just as she does when she plays volleyball.

Like Chloe, Brenden Cabrera was counting on his last basketball season to become captain and shine. “I honestly thought there wasn’t going to be a season or team at all for the rest of the year,” he said. The 17-year-old student-athlete, who plays for the boys’ basketball team, wasn’t active at all and didn’t feel like himself since he wasn’t playing. He spent his days at home at virtual school, playing video games or coding. It was like a cycle, and he didn’t know if it would ever end. He was frustrated about the lost time on the court. He wants to pursue college basketball, so he took the pandemic downtime to try to train, saying, “I can use this to get better and prepare to play college basketball.” Since no one had a clue when PSAL sports were coming back, he reviewed videos to learn and did simple drills such as bouncing the ball on each hand, performing different types of exercises to keep fit.

Eventually around April, life slowly started to get back on track with things reopening and kids going back to in-person school. PSAL sports opened but only offered a few sports at CCAA during the springtime. Boys’ basketball and soccer and girls’ volleyball and softball started up.

Brenden jumped on the opportunity and joined even though players must wear masks during practice. “Now that we have a team, it is definitely worth playing because of how much I love playing basketball. Just being able to have the chance to play in general is a blessing, so it is definitely worth it to play even though there are some regulations in place,” he said.

But despite the love Tiana and Chloe have for their sport, they didn’t jump on the opportunity like Brenden did. They are just focused on finishing off the rest of the school year with only one month to go. We know COVID-19 took away a lot of things, and sports was the top thing for student-athletes. However, things are starting to look good. Many student-athletes are waiting for things to open up even more. They want field sports, court events and student fans.