When Marlon Gardinera filed a lawsuit so that his son Nicholas could play high school football again, he didn’t foresee the success he would achieve.
“I would have never thought that we'd be the first people to make the governor crack,” said Gardinera, a walk-on coach at a local San Diego high school.
After youth sports were put on hold due to COVID-19, Gardinera sued Gov. Newsom, the county of San Diego, public health officer Wilma Wooten, and the California Department of Public Health. The case was settled last week.
“California is the sixth-largest economy in the world and all of the businesses that are suffering from the impacts of COVID restrictions couldn't get the state open,” he told the Southern California Record. “It seems odd that all of the money and power behind California businesses couldn't change the governor’s mind about reopening the economy or even get him to the table and force anything. So, the idea that a random father, a head football coach in San Diego and his son could achieve it is a surprise.”
Gardinera requested a temporary restraining order (TRO) as part of the litigation and on March 5, San Diego Superior Court Judge Earl H. Maas III granted the TRO opening the way for high school and youth sports to resume in San Diego County, according to media reports.
“As long as the(y) follow the same or similar COVID-19 protocols imposed for competition in professional and/or collegiate sports within the county,” Judge Maas wrote in his order.
As of March 11, there were 3,516,862 confirmed coronavirus cases statewide, resulting in 54,891 fatalities, which is a 0.5% increase from the prior day total of 54,621, according to the state's COVID dashboard.
“The Institute for Higher Education requires testing within 48 hours of competition and it requires that you have contact tracing in place,” Gardinera said. “In exchange for allowing all sports to play, including indoor, we were willing to undergo additional testing but the trade-off is if they didn't meet the additional testing required for college sports, they wouldn't be playing at all.”
Gardinera is hopeful that his son could still potentially receive the scholarship he had been preparing for before the coronavirus emerged.
“Although the windows of opportunity and the number of scholarships available is greatly reduced because most States have already played and many of the scholarships have been offered, Nicholas will have an opportunity to give recruiters senior film and show them his best, which is what is required in the recruiting process,” he said.