Paul Kim had had enough of Santa Clara County’s strict COVID-19 policies for youth contact sports.
In early September, he packed up his two soccer-loving daughters and relocated from San Jose to Phoenix.
“There is a development window,” Kim said of youth soccer. “Once it is gone, it is gone. It doesn’t come back.”
Will and Katherine Lowry of Palo Alto came to the same conclusion. Will Lowry moved Liam, 15, and Kaitlin, 13, to Utah in early September so his kids could continue their budding soccer careers.
These Bay Area families represent the lengths Californians are going to help their children pursue sports they love at a time when Santa Clara County and the state have some of the country’s strictest COVID-19 measures. Parents from the Golden State have been taking their kids across state lines since government officials began prohibiting youth sports in the spring.
Currently, Santa Clara County’s prohibition extends to professional, college and high school sports as well, leading the 49ers to relocate to Arizona, Stanford’s football team to the Pacific Northwest and San Jose’s team to Las Vegas. State public health officials have not approved of prep competition since the school year began in late summer.
Kim said he rented a one-bedroom apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, for himself, Nicole, 13, and Taylor, 8, who had been playing for the prestigious Mountain View-Los Altos Soccer Club.
Kim’s wife, Hanna, and middle daughter, Chelsea, 11, stayed in San Jose. Chelsea, who loves golf, has been able to continue training in the Bay Area so far.
The Lowrys played for the Silicon Valley Soccer Academy in Palo Alto before moving into a condominium in a Salt Lake City suburb. Mother Katherine Lowry, a nurse anesthetist at Stanford Hospital, stayed behind because “you don’t walk away from a crisis,” her husband said of the pandemic.
Competitive youth soccer games in California have been banned since March when the pandemic began. Since then, Illinois, New Mexico and Washington state leaders also have not permitted competition although the rest of the country is playing much to the chagrin of Bay Area coaches.
And now Phoenix, which drew thousands of kids and parents from out of state this fall, also is shutting down youth sports until at least February. Phoenix city council members voted last week to close athletic fields and ban organized youth events to help stop a surge in Maricopa County.
However, the edict does not affect surrounding cities such as Scottsdale, Mesa and Tempe where Nicole and Taylor’s teams have been training and playing.
Nicole’s current team, the highly rated Phoenix Rising FC, has entered the annual RSL Holiday Classic this weekend. The girls have appeared in about 20 games since the move, Paul Kim said.
The Kims and Lowrys relocated to states currently facing much higher per-capita infection rates than California, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“California as a state is doing really well,” Will Lowry said. “We’re in the top 10, yet we’re one of the most restrictive states.”
Government officials have acted recently because California is averaging more than 20,000 cases per day for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The state also this week recorded the country’s most overall infections with more than 1.3 million cases, surpassing Texas by about 30,000 cases, according to the New York Times.
Public health officials have said that strict measures have helped California keep the per-capita rates relatively low.
The fathers said they feel safe in states with higher per-capita rates because statistical models show low rates of infections and morbidity for people under the age of 17.
“There is no reason I should put my kids in a bottle for six or 12 months,” said Will Lowry, who builds data platforms in Silicon Valley. “Let’s understand the risk.”
Paul Kim said the Phoenix club shut down for two weeks in November when a child’s father tested positive. He said all the Rising players subsequently tested negative, leading Kim to believe the virus was not being spread on the soccer field.
Kim said it came down to obeying “harsh rules or doing what is right for our kids.”
Coach Erin Montoya said her Mountain View-Los Altos Soccer Club had to tread carefully when Santa Clara County recently enacted rules prohibiting youth teams from traveling elsewhere to play.
She said the nonprofit club could not risk being fined by taking top prospects to a South Carolina showcase event last weekend where college coaches evaluate promising players for scholarships.
The club where U.S. national team starter Abby Dahlkemper once played is one of the county’s top programs with about 100 teams and 1,500 players aged 7-17. It participates in the Elite Club National League, the highest level for youth soccer.
“We were going to travel safely but now we don’t have that option,” Montoya said. “We can’t have contact at practice. The one place we could go was out of state and now we can’t.”
Montoya said coaches in other states who have been playing for months report few virus safety issues.
“The past year was wiped out and these trips are the only way to be seen by the colleges and nobody cares,” she said.
Losing the year is the main reason the Kims, Lowrys and hundreds of other families, especially in Southern California, have temporarily relocated.
The Bay Area parents said their kids understand that not every family can afford to relocate, and it has put a financial strain on their households. Will Lowry said he has been proud of how Liam and Kaitlin have shown appreciation for the opportunity.
“They understand a whole lot of people are really struggling,” he said. “Not everybody gets to do this. They know this is not a holiday.”
The fathers have created schedules for their kids so they could attend to their schoolwork while having time to practice and play as if it were 2019.
Liam Lowry has continued his studies online at Palo Alto High School while sister Kaitlin is taking virtual classes at Frank S. Greene Middle School.
Kim’s daughters also are taking classes online at their respective San Jose public schools.
The Kims plan to return to their Silver Creek home in the coming weeks when the season finishes in Arizona. They would have to undergo a quarantine while traveling to the county from beyond 150 miles away.
The latest lockdown that began Sunday night will not keep the Kims from training, their father said. If they cannot use local fields and parks the girls could train in the backyard. Kim also converted his garage into a home gym.
Kim expects to return to Arizona when the season re-starts early next year because Santa Clara and California officials probably will not permit youth sports to begin yet. But if all of Maricopa County were to ban youth sports like Phoenix, Kim said he might consider the Dallas area, another youth soccer hotbed.
The Lowrys also do not know what the future holds upon returning to Palo Alto this weekend. Will Lowry said he hopes his kids can attend school on their respective campuses after the holiday break.
But a return to Utah next year is a real possibility, Lowry added.
“My kids have played as long as they can remember,” he said. “You don’t just walk away from it. You either quit or find a way to stay competitive.”
Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories the Bay Area News Group will publish about California high school and youth sports being on pause.
