California football coaches make their plea to the governor

California coaches on Sunday got their meeting with the Governor's office, where they made their opening argument for the prompt but safe return of youth sports in the Golden State.

Patrick Walsh, the head football coach at Serra High School in San Mateo, was one of three coaches on the Zoom call with Executive Secretary Jim DeBoo, which lasted about an hour on Sunday. Walsh, along with De La Salle football coach Justin Alumbaugh and Ron Gladnick, who coaches football at Torrey Pines High School in San Diego, presented data collected by their organization to DeBoo in what Walsh described as a "positive first step" in their goal of getting kids back on the playing field.

On Friday, Gladnick made the coaches' first entreaty with a one-on-one meeting with Newsom, which prompted a longer meeting with DeBoo and all three coaches two days later.

"We let the governor and Mr. DeBoo know where we stand and what our intentions are from our non-political stance of getting kids back on the field," Walsh said in an interview Monday morning. "It was received well, and now we have to take the next step and have further dialogue to actually get that done."

Walsh said the coaches made a personal appeal to DeBoo, who also has kids who play sports. Walsh said DeBoo told him this was the first year he can remember that he hadn't coached Little League.

Walsh came away from the meeting believing that DeBoo and the Governor's office "understand what we're going through" and was hopeful about further conversations.

"It's good to know we can have access to the points in government that will actually help us make this decision for the kids," Walsh said.

Before this weekend, Walsh had exchanged emails with Dr. Mark Ghaly, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and other state health officials but had been politely rebuffed when requesting a meeting. Last week, Walsh released an open letter to the Governor, in which the coaches argued for youth sports to be decoupled entirely from the state's tiered reopening system.

Gladnick exercised personal connections to make a meeting with Newsom happen on Friday, Walsh said, and by Sunday evening, they had an official meeting on the books with Newsom's office.

On Monday, the California Department of Public Health announced it was rescinding the regional stay-at-home order, under which athletes were allowed to hold distanced workouts but competitions were forbidden. That could pave the way for purple-tier sports to begin competition in all parts of California in the coming weeks, once leagues devise their own plans to return to play.