“That was their way out. Basketball was their outlet, their stress reliever, their way to do things. It gave them something positive to do,” said their coach, Reggie Walker. “All of the sudden, it’s gone. Now it affects everyone mentally, because you don’t have it anymore. It’s just gone.”
Unlike their peers in areas of Maryland and Virginia, where some public and private school basketball was allowed this winter, Parrish and Gary remained on the sideline as their sophomore season was wiped out by D.C.’s public health emergency order, which has barred all high school sports since last March.
And unlike other teens in the Washington area who have the resources to play in private leagues, Parrish and Gary don’t have the funding or transportation to compete on travel teams, said Walker, who is doing everything in his power to keep the girls interested in playing.
“[The pandemic] changed my mind-set. When they started to announce our season was getting taken away from us, we couldn’t practice, in my mind it was like: ‘What’s the point of even playing again?’” Parrish said. “But I knew it was better for me to stay positive with playing basketball, because that’s what keeps me busy. That’s what gives me opportunities.”
The opportunity for high school athletes such as Parrish and Gary to play has largely disappeared. While all 50 states are offering some form of high school sports, D.C. has remained closed to high school athletics competition for a full calendar year. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced this week that the city’s high schools could begin practice and drills starting this week — but only for spring sports such as track, tennis and softball.
The D.C. State Athletic Association has canceled the fall and winter sports seasons, and it remains unclear when schools might be able to compete in basketball again.
That has led to upheaval among some local coaches, parents and students, who have watched as some surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia have allowed basketball to be played. D.C.’s restrictions have compelled some of the city’s athletes to travel to those states to play in private leagues, which has underscored the inequity facing many of D.C.’s teen athletes.
“One thing this pandemic has highlighted for me, and has really bright lit, is the socioeconomic divide between those that have and those that have not,” said Clark Ray, the executive director of the DCSAA. “If you are a student-athlete and you can afford to pay, you are more than likely participating in a high school-related activity throughout the DMV. There are opportunities. If you have recognizable talent, you can ask to play. Then there is a large subset of our population — they haven’t [been] discovered yet or they can’t afford it. And those are the kids that are really, truly missing out.”
Parrish and Gary have offers to play on AAU teams, Walker said, but they lack the transportation to even reach practices. It would be impossible for Walker to get his players to and from different gyms across the region each day. “On top of that, it’s the money issue,” he said. He looked into forming his own team and playing in a private league across the river in Virginia, but it wanted roughly $2,000 to compete, he said.
“Where are we going to get all of this money? It’s easier when all of us can play at the same place together and then we can … raise the money so that they can play,” he said.
For now, he has been forced to do whatever he can to keep his players interested enough to return to the team when the city opens its gyms again. He has dropped off basketballs and weights, and sometimes he will go to local parks to put his players through workouts.
But the promise of that night Anacostia won a title last March, by defeating rival Ballou, has become a distant memory. The night before, the girls held a slumber party, cooking food and dancing one last time before their season was over. Now Parrish and Gary often text and make plans to get together but never do.
Their days are spent focused on school, where both have remained among Anacostia’s best students despite the transition to virtual learning, but the absence of basketball in the afternoons has taken a toll. The loss of the team and the subsequent isolation of pandemic life have had an impact on Gary, a 6-foot forward who at one point last year turned down an invitation to play on a traveling team.
“I was scared because I didn’t know anybody,” she said “… You’re not going to know everybody everywhere you go, but I didn’t want to be by myself. I didn’t want to go without my mom, or I didn’t want to go without Coach [Walker].”
Some days will feel normal during virtual learning, Gary said, but at times she unexpectedly feels overwhelmed with sadness and cries. She has resorted to taking long walks through her neighborhood with her mother, and sometimes they stop for dinner and will eat and watch the sun go down in their neighborhood before returning to the house. That always gives her energy to tackle her academic load, which is full of Advanced Placement courses.
“I want to thrive. … I want to do something for myself,” Gary said. “If I can’t do it with scholarships with my sports, I’m going to do it with my academics.”
Parrish had been recruited to Anacostia by Walker and had started a handful of games at point guard during her freshman season. She felt she had played one of her best games in the championship against Ballou. As the pandemic set in and she was no longer practicing, “it affected me,” she said, “because it took away more opportunity to get better.”
Parrish said she works out alone in her home once or twice a week with a fitness app that Walker suggested, but most of her after-school hours are filled with working on her jewelry business, which she launched earlier in the pandemic. She makes customized pendants, and she has worked hard to garner support from local businesses in her neighborhood.
“I started a business — that’s the pro,” she said. “There’s really not that many pros. It’s basically all cons. We can’t go nowhere.”
Walker wants his players to believe they can earn college basketball scholarships again.
“That’s one of the effects of covid. It hasn’t been ingrained in them that you’re going to play college ball because it’s a free education,” he said, but like every other coach in the city, he doesn’t have any idea when he might be able to coach his players again.
For now, he is planning to take the group go-karting in Maryland this month just to get them back together. He imagines the day they might all be back in the gym practicing, even as that thought seems far off for his players — “I can’t even imagine,” Parrish said — and it remains unknown how long it might take for the girls to adjust mentally and physically to playing again.
“There’s no telling where we will be,” Walker said.