A year ago, Marlon Gardinera's son Nicholas,17, was being recruited by universities for a football scholarship but COVID-19 restrictions have blocked and tackled his senior year in high school.
“If he does not have a senior season of football, universities like UCLA and the University of Arizona will not have adequate enough film of his performance to make a final determination,” said Gardinera. “Personally, that's a change for me of having to pay $250,000 for his education.”
Gardinera, a walk-on coach at a local San Diego high school, feels so strongly about his son’s future that he sued Gov. Newsom, the county of San Diego, public health officer Wilma Wooten, and the California Department of Public Health.
Nicholas Gardinera
| provided
“So many colleges need my son’s senior film and to see him develop in order to follow through on their previous offers of scholarship based on his performance his senior year,” Gardinera told the Southern California Record. “He is literally being kept from that opportunity.”
Before he filed the lawsuit on Jan. 28 in the North County Division of San Diego Superior Court, Gardinera said a grassroots group he belongs to called "Let Them Play" was meeting with Gov. Newsom’s executive secretary, which appeared to be progressing but never resulted in an outcome.
“We felt like we were making progress and the governor’s office seemed very receptive,” Gardinera said. “We were able to get all of the data into their hands and we were believing that maybe the governor would say something about it but when we listened to the press conference, he didn’t follow through.”
As of Feb. 2, California has 3,270,770 confirmed coronavirus cases, resulting in 41,330 deaths, according to the state's COVID dashboard.
Schools in San Diego have been among the casualties of coronavirus restrictions along with churches due to the fact that the county has been classified as purple and Tier 1, the strictest of all statewide color-coded COVID zoning.
“Let me parent my son and decide what risks I'm willing to take,” Gardinera said. “Politicians should focus on getting us the vaccine. We have a solution but because of mismanagement at the government level, we don't have it distributed among all of the adults involved. So, I really wish politicians were focused on the things that they actually have control of.”
MSN reported that while mass vaccination sites have received an increase in supplies of doses, smaller clinics are still waiting.
“We're not proposing that students be forced to play sports,” Gardiner said of his lawsuit. “If someone feels that the risks are too high or if there are people in the home that are particularly vulnerable, we're not advocating that they go against their own best interests. We're advocating that we know our best interests better than the governor. He doesn't know my child’s name or what's in the best interest for Nicholas.”