Scenes From A Rally
#LetUsPlay weekend event will not bring back football, but continues vital conversation on mental health concerns caused by shutdown
Any FM radio station would be envious of the representation at Saturday’s #LetUsPlay rally in Chicago.
From Antioch to New Lenox.
Park Ridge to Batavia.
Naperville to Hillcrest.
Chicago to St. Charles
They took trains and automobiles (no planes, apologies to John Candy). They held hand made signs putting words to what is top of mind in thousands of Chicagoland households:
“My Child, My Choice”
“Save Our Sports”
“Mental Health Matters”
The hundreds of high school athletes, coaches and parents who congregated in front of the Thompson Center downtown on a brisk but beautiful Saturday morning shared a common directive, to get back to playing football, girls volleyball and boys soccer, three sports banned in 2020 by the misguided, heavy hand of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
A legitimate question—was the Gov aware of the rally? Or of the estimated 1,000 folks who gathered at the capital building in Springfield later in the day?
A more important question to ask Monday, the final official day of summer, is this—will the rallies move the needle? Will the pictures, images, sounds and messaging from the rallies compel Pritzker to change his mind and reinstate football and other ‘high-risk’ sports? While I’m sure Pritzker was not watching in real time, one of his aides Monday needs to urgently show him the speeches from the Chicago rally.
Because the people most impacted by Governor’s refusal to revisit his youth sports edict, the children of Illinois, spoke loudly and eloquently.
Kaylie Dahms is a senior girls tennis player at Plainfield Central High School. Plainfield is located about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.
She stood on the podium and stared out at a crowd of mostly suburban football players whom she had never seen before. Then she spoke into a microphone calmly and confidently.
“September is teen suicide month in Illinois,” Dahms said. “The greatest risk is not COVID but suicide.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a mental health survey conducted in June revealed symptoms of anxiety and depression were up sharply between March and June when compared to the same timeframe in 2019. More startling, in the 18 to 24 age range, the CDC survey said one in four respondents “seriously considered” suicide over the past 30 days.
For many years, suicide has been the second leading cause of death among the 10-24 age group (accidents being number one). How can we possibly underestimate how forcing kids to stay home for six months will impact their mental health?
For anyone who brushes aside conversations about mental health, or see it as a ‘straw’ argument that takes attention away from the real problem, that being the virus and the number of cases (blah, blah, blah), listen to what actual young people are actually saying.
What they said Saturday.
“We ask Governor Pritzker not only consider our physical health and safety but our mental well-being and the long term effects of cancelling youth sports in Illinois,” Dahms said.
Here is a terrific video compilation Dahms put together:
What an impressive young athlete and leader she is.
Jaylen Brown is a senior football player at Wheaton South High School. Wheaton is located 25-30 miles west of Chicago.
“You are taking away our chances to learn valuable lessons and build lifelong relationships. Taking away our chance to compete and represent our schools,” Brown said at the rally. “For many kids, sports are the outlet to get our minds off of struggles and stresses they have to deal with in their every day lives.”
Aside from continuing the mental health thread from Saturday, he illuminated a core issue front and center in the #ReturnToPlay national debate.
Government overreach vs subsidiarity.
I wrote about the concept of subsidiarity in a previous article. It’s basically an idea grounded in religious doctrines that favors local decision-makers over that of state or national lawmakers:
Nothing should be done at a higher level that can be done well or better at a lower level. A community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life and community of a lower order
Here is also what Brown said:
“Other states have figured out a safe way to play. They is no doubt in my mind that everyone right here, right now or at home is willing to do whatever it takes to play. Whether it be signing contact waivers or wearing masks.”
Brown is watching what we all are watching on Friday nights and Saturdays across the country. He is seeing football games in Michigan, in Indiana, in Ohio. He is seeing them play games and do so while executing the health and safety guidelines set by local public health officials. And with no significant virus outbreaks that have forced the shut down of games.
What Brown is basically asking, pleading to government leaders is this: ‘We will do whatever is asked of us. Do you not trust us, Governor?’
Unfortunately, Jaylen, it’s not about trust. It’s about ego and political ambition.
Without a doubt the most passionate speech was made by a volleyball player from St. Laurence High School in Burbank, located about 15 miles southwest of Chicago.
Ella Woltman is a freshman in high school. She spoke in the frustrated tones of an athlete sidelined for too long by adults with zero stake in her future.
“Volleyball is not a contact sport!”
“We’ve been waiting for six months. We’ve been pushed around like lab rats. We’re done waiting for answers from those in charge…we demand that kids be free again!”
Woltman also sounded like a young woman wise beyond her years:
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather talking about something more important than fear. What’s happening is crippling an athlete’s physical and emotional well being.”
There were three non-high school athletes who spoke at the rally. One was Adam Russo, Chairman & CEO of Edgewood Clinical Services in Naperville.
Russo started his short speech by verbalizing what is in the subconscious of many of us.
“I’m tired of hearing the word ‘safety,’” Russo said.
What Russo and most of us are tired of is government officials defining for us what safety means. As far as we’ve come with the virus, to continue to explain knuckle-headed decisions with the ‘health and safety’ shield is at best disingenuous. At worst, it’s dangerous, because it undercuts the crisis Russo sees every day as a clinical psychologist.
“Anxiety and depression caused by being cooped up in your basement is real. It’s real and we are seeing it. We’re seeing a massive increase in the amount of anxiety in young people…if there is just a one percent increase in the teenage suicide rate, more teenagers will die of suicide than COVID if current trends hold.”
Russo said the amount of mental health care needed from people in the 16-24 age bracket has doubled since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
He shined a light on haphazard guidelines made in youth sports, of how there appears to be very little thought put into decisions.
“Twenty contact days? What do you think happens in contact day 21? Why not 19? The rules are arbitrary and its being made by people who want to keep you ‘safe,’” Russo said. “What is missing by being kept safe? What about leadership? What about teamwork, time management, dedication? Isn’t that important?”
Of course they are important. But to Pritzker, they are indistinct ideas and concepts. New cases? Positivity rate? Those are clear-cut, visible brass tacks. It’s easy for a politician to stand in front of a podium and speak of ‘essential’ facts.
But mental health? That’s fuzzy for a politician, especially one like Pritzker who has already staked a position.
At a Monday press conference in Springfield, Pritzker reinforced his position on not reinstating sports deemed ‘high-risk’ by his public health officials:
I don’t want to take credit for being the best testing state in the nation and we are not the highest in the country but certainly in the Midwest which I am very proud of. I want to say that the reason we are not letting everyone go and just remove all the barriers, why not go to Phase 5? Why not? Because the virus is still out there. Because we still have a relatively high positivity rate
Does this sound like someone interested in what took place this past weekend or rallies scheduled for this week? Or does it sound like a politician pontificating about subjects that will elevate his national profile?
I applaud state-wide media that continue to press him on this topic. But he remains resolute.
Later Monday, the state of Minnesota became the latest Midwestern state to reverse an earlier decision and reinstate football (and other fall sports). In media reports about the turnaround, there is almost no mention of the Governor of Minnesota. Whomever that person is, I have no idea what their position is on youth sports. We now know based on what happened Monday in Minnesota, its state high school association didn’t think it was that important to solicit the governor’s opinion before taking action and doing what’s best for kids.
That’s how it should be.
“What I want most of all is to keep these kids and their parents and their grandparents and their neighbors safe,” Pritzker said.
Gag me with a spoon.
The Saturday rally took a little over a half hour. As people scattered and went to their cars (I was quickly reminded of parking on the street in the city…you are on the clock!) and made plans for lunch, I had a few other drive by conversations.
One coach wondered why there weren’t more people in front of the Thompson Center. Another speculated the reason may have been concerns of coming into the city, or maybe their school district leaders were less than encouraging to coaches/students to be seen on Chicago television wearing school gear at a #LetUsPlay rally, and indirectly, supporting #BackInTheClassroom.
The politics run deep.
Another rally attendant speculated on the reason hundreds rather than thousands descended on downtown Chicago Saturday.
“Apathy?” he said.
Gosh I hope not.
A rally in Naperville is scheduled for Monday night. Tuesday, Chicago’s South Side, Wednesday in Glenview and others throughout the week.
Who will be the Ella Woltman at Naperville? Or the Kaylie Dahms in Glenview? Whom will speak about mental health on the South Side or in Arlington Heights?
So keep organizing. Keep talking. Keep putting pressure on government leaders. Keep shouting chants of #LetUsPlay until it gives everyone a headache.
Because the conversations are worth having.
All of it matters.