Re-Emergence of Pro Sports Inspires Young Athletes

9th grade boys playing handball in the Upper gym, October 2020. While sports at Browning will be postponed for the foreseeable future, students are feeling inspired to stay active during this break (Photo: Jeremy Kats ‘04).

As the world tries to implicate some normalcy into our everyday lives by bringing back sports leagues, students at Browning are starting to feel the comfort to unpause their athletic careers.

“I feel like now that I see these athletes back in their game and element, it gives me some reassurance to start training again,” Jon S. ‘22 said.

Last March, students at Browning believed that the pandemic presented a two-week break from the preparation of the upcoming baseball season. Some of the varsity players were expecting to still go to Florida and have Spring Training. When they found out it was canceled they knew their season would have to stop for a while.

“At first I thought it was going to be a two-week vacation, but after getting an email from coach West about the cancellation of Spring-training then I knew something was off. After that, we just kept getting more and more bad news. I was really looking forward to the trip since I was a senior and this was my last season,” Austin S. ‘20 said.

Athletes and members of the Browning community were anxious for the baseball season to begin because the players wanted another shot at the champion title. 

It was hard to lose an entire season, especially when it was an important one. We lost to Loyola in the finals the previous year and I really wanted to face them again and beat them,” Joe F. ‘22 said.

Over this past summer, students were hesitant to start training again. They watched the news and worried about the probability of contracting the virus if they participated in any activity outside in New York City. 

“I still had an opportunity to play some hockey before the rinks shut down, but I was not convinced that everything was safe. I follow a lot of professional athletes online, and once they stopped playing, I was convinced that I needed to stop as well,” Jack G. ‘24 said.

For some students, the pandemic gave them the opportunity to focus more on their fiscal health in other ways that they would not have thought about before. Outside of training for a certain sport. Weight lifting became a prominent activity some students started to enjoy.

“I used to work out about four to five days a week before the pandemic hit. Henry S. ‘22 said. After we found out that everything was going to close for a while I knew that I needed to adapt to the changing environment. I took the time to really focus on myself and I started working out every day. I was dedicated for a long time and found a new passion through weight lifting. Now it is second nature to go to the gym. I just want to keep improving my strength,” 

“I worked extremely hard during the time everything was closed down. I gained more muscle and then a new opportunity arose. I was asked to play football at my college. I never thought that I would be a Tight End for my school, but if it were not for the virus, I would have never become a football player,” Austin S. ‘20 said.

COVID-19 took us all by surprise and seemed to complicate our lives and routines, but for some, it opened new doors to improve themselves and experience new achievements. As we try to develop a new system that implicates old and new procedures we must remember that one-day things will go back to the way they were and the most important thing to young athletes is to keep training for when seasons resume.