Mental health issues surface as high school athletes cope without sports during the pandemic

Last March, Catholic High athletic director Lyndsey Boyce gathered all the Crusader athletes together.
She wanted to talk to them about COVID-19 and a possible time schedule about when they could return to the field and courts.
“I gathered them all in the bleachers outside and I said, ‘Listen guys, everybody is saying two weeks, but I’m going to be honest, I think it’s going to be a little bit longer,” Boyce recalled. “But we’re going to be back out here.”
That was six months ago.
At public schools around Hampton Roads and the state, students still aren’t back in school.
Some private schools, including Catholic, have welcomed students back on campus but under strict guidelines.
Athletes have been able to condition and lift weights under social distancing. But there won’t be any organized practices or games in the Tidewater Conference for several months. The conference will hold winter sports