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More than a year after the pandemic began, thousands of student-athletes future remains uncertain.
More than a year after the pandemic began, thousands of college and high school athletes fear for their future. They are concerned about how COVID-19 could hurt their chances of advancing from college to professional sports or high school to college athletics. Matches, tournaments, training camps, and medical assistance to athletes have been canceled for more than a year due to the Coronavirus; this has put the future of thousands of student-athletes at risk.
Running company TD Ameritrade conducted a study on the impact of COVID-19 on youth sports and found that 47% of athletes believe that canceling their activities puts their college scholarship at risk. There are more than 180,000 students whose future depends on sports scholarships to help finance their education. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) halted the recruiting period until April. This means that college coaches cannot have face-to-face contact with high school athletes or their parents. They also can’t watch them compete or visit their schools to assess their performance and decide whether to award scholarships to college.
The pandemic has also led to budget cuts for sports across the United States. According to a Next College Student Athlete survey, 30% of student-athletes are concerned that universities will cut their sports discipline. It is a genuine concern as dozens of institutions have had to eliminate various sports programs. Individual athletic departments will have to answer questions like why deal with so many sports? Why should a sport be a college sport rather than a club sport? Richard Southall, director of the College Sport Research Institute and professor of sports and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, told CNBC. “Colleges and universities are going to have to make decisions on travel budgets, and coaching salaries and equipment, and all of these capital investments in new buildings and so on.”
Dan Doyle, manager of recruiting coaches for upcoming college athletes, explained that sports programs that were forced to make these cuts are likely to eliminate sports with fewer players on the team, such as rowing, tennis, and golf. In the end, sports with the most personnel, such as soccer, basketball, and baseball, are the ones that offer the most benefits for the number of registrations they produce.
The future remains uncertain for athletes, but they are constantly looking for new ways to get noticed. Some have opted for video conferencing with college recruiters, live-streamed camps, or uploading videos demonstrating their skills. Still, many coaches encourage students to focus on academics or consider college programs that allow them to play and then transfer in a year or two to get back to where they are.
The physical and mental well-being of athletes
On the other hand, the NCAA published the results of its study “Well-being of Students-Athletes” on athletes’ physical and mental well-being. About 25,000 athletes participated in the survey. In general, students reported that as the pandemic progressed, they had less difficulty sleeping and lower levels of loneliness, loss, anger, and sadness than at the beginning of the quarantine. Still, there was an increase in her anxiety, hopelessness, mental exhaustion, and feelings of depression.
Among the biggest concerns of athletes are their grades (43%), not being able to practice their sport (33%), COVID-19 (31%), and financial concerns (24%). Regarding the Coronavirus, 64% of those surveyed confirmed that they almost always follow social distancing rules (masks, physical distance, not attending large meetings). During the fall semester, 37% isolated themselves due to the virus’s symptoms, being exposed to someone infected, or because there was an outbreak of cases at their university. Moreover, 51% said that a family member or friend tested positive at that time and 9% have or had someone close to them hospitalized or died.
It is difficult for them to focus on their sports and reach their peak performance with all this situation. Anxiety can extend to problems with sleep, relationships, or school performance. Aloiya Earl, a doctor who is part of the sports medicine team at Premier Orthopedics at the University of Dayton, recommends that athletes contact a sports doctor or psychologist to give them personalized advice and strategies to treat their stress and anxiety.
For those whose seasons continue to be delayed or suspended indefinitely, one thing that will help them improve their mental health is to stay connected with their teammates. It helps to normalize the experience and feel heard and supported as they go through the same thing. On the other hand, Dr. Earl says that athletes have done a great job exercising independently in her experience. Still, it is recommended for those out of shape: for runners or endurance athletes, start slow and increase mileage or intensity by 10% per week to avoid injury. Those who practice basketball or sports requiring bursts of energy should gradually increase and pay attention if they have muscle pain or discomfort since the second end in injury and is not normal. Eating nutritious meals and staying hydrated to support your body and the immune system is also super important to get your level back.
Athletes and COVID-19
Although most athletes are strong and healthy and have had mild or asymptomatic symptoms, there are cases where students have suffered from myocarditis. This is inflammation of the heart muscle in reaction to a virus, which can be the flu, not just Coronavirus. “Usually, it’s diagnosed because somebody has had an out-of-the-ordinary symptom like shortness of breath or chest pain after being sick. If they have these symptoms as they go back to sports and they’re getting their heart rate and blood pressure up, it would flag us to say maybe we should do some cardiac testing,” explains Dr. Earl.
That is why she recommends taking ten days without exercising, even if they did not present symptoms to prevent it from happening. “Taking that extra time to prevent any cardiac inflammation is important,” she counsels. “You’ll bounce back quickly as long as you safely ease back into your activity.” Still, the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP) recommends returning in stages with permission from the athlete’s physician.
A recent study published in the American College of Cardiology Journals studied 54 male student-athletes with an average age of 19 who had tested positive for COVID-19 at a university in West Virginia. Although the sample was small, they found that one in three had heart abnormalities such as myocarditis, some without showing symptoms. Further investigation is required to understand the actual risks and long-term implications. However, it is still a serious concern and should be taken into account as athletes return to training.
“Kids who play sports who do high-intensity training are the kids most at risk,” Dr. Gianmichel Corrado of the department of sports medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital told Boston 25 News. “A child who has a swollen heart and was sent back to play, that increases the risk of sudden death. And those are the children we are concerned about. It’s scary. And we don’t know much about this virus.”
Another severe disease that has occurred in several child athletes is the Multisystemic Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C). According to AAP, this means that patients will have a fever for 24 hours or more, have inflammation in the body, and problems with many organs, such as the intestines, heart, brain, lungs, skin, and kidneys. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that any child who developed severe COVID-19 symptoms or was diagnosed with MIS-C be treated as having myocarditis and not compete for three to six months or until discharged by a pediatric cardiologist.
Sadly, the life that thousands of student-athletes were used to may never be the same after COVID-19. It may be different from losing years of fitness because of not being able to train or compete in colleges, high schools, and professional sports recruit athletes. Beyond games without fans, sanitizing training venues, and players forced to wear masks in training, the reality of returning to the field after the pandemic remains an uncertain subject. Athletes who have not opted for another career have no choice but to keep striving and wait to see what the future holds.
Translation by Daniel Wetta.
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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