Another young athlete in our state had another sobering incident this week. This one, a 16-year-old basketball player for Crook County High School who was masked up and unable to breathe.

Savannah Lay collapsed at her high school tryout, according to her mother. An assistant coach administered CPR. Once responsive, paramedics moved her to a stretcher and rushed her to the hospital.

At the hospital they performed blood tests.

Then, an EKG.

Then, an X-ray.

“What will it take for people to wake up?” her mother, Jessica Lay, wrote in a letter to her state representative.

That’s a question for Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and the Oregon Health Authority today. Lay’s daughter has since made a full recovery. Physicians told the family that the follow-up tests showed that nothing was wrong. Nothing except the lack of oxygen and common sense, that is.

Other states, even our neighbors, don’t require young athletes to wear masks during competition. Young soccer players, for example, in California don’t wear masks during games. Basketball players don’t wear them, either. But here we are in Oregon, operating as if we haven’t had the benefit of watching everyone else’s children safely go first.

We were told, “We’ll follow the science,” in Oregon.

So let’s follow it.

Also, maybe add a dose of common sense?

Studies show that children are at a low risk for COVID-19. The evidence supports that competition, unmasked, is also a low-risk proposition. There haven’t been widespread outbreaks associated with youth sports events, not even where you’d expect them.

The large-scale youth sports tournaments held in places such as Phoenix and Las Vegas have been safely held. I know. My brother has three children who play club soccer and they’ve been playing mask-free for months in other states.

I also reached out to Troy Silva last week. He’s a notable baseball coach who hosts a popular youth baseball podcast with his wife. They live in Arizona. Silva played professional baseball and makes his living now as a private instructor who works with kids. I was looking for a recommendation on an instructor in Oregon who could work 1-on-1 with a friend’s 8-year old son who had his baseball season shut down.

Silva was puzzled at the request.

“We haven’t stopped playing down here,” he said from suburban Phoenix.

In Oregon, I told him, we’re struggling to keep up — oh, and kids are fully masked on the field.

“So sad,” Silva said.

Drive by a youth baseball or softball field in Oregon and you’ll see the center fielder masked up. Left and right fielder, too. But parents around the outfield fence sitting in folding chairs are unmasked, sitting alongside each other? Who does the OHA and governor think the kids on the field are going home with after the game?

Athletes should wear a mask on the bench or in the dugout. But they shouldn’t be required to wear masks during competition or practices. It doesn’t make sense, and worst of all, it’s causing a lot of angst and potential harm. Lay collapsed. So did Maggie Williams, an 800-meter runner at Summit High, who garnered national attention when she dropped at the finish line.

OHA and Gov. Brown’s office altered the guidance after Williams lost consciousness at the finish line of her race. The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained an email exchange between state officials as they discussed how to shift the mask rules in the wake of the Williams’ incident.

Patrick Allen, director of OHA, wrote an email to state epidemiologist Dr. Dean Sidelinger and included Leah Horner, an adviser in the governor’s office.

Allen wrote: “I’m hearing we are removing the mask requirement for competition but not practice?

“Really?”

He continued on the thread, “How are we explaining masks during training but not competition? The training is pretty much the same activity.”

The others didn’t really answer.

We’re all weary with that act, aren’t we?

The new rule, announced 48 hours later, allowed athletes in non-contact sports to remove masks during competition when they weren’t within six feet of another person. It didn’t allow for the removal of masks during practices. Try figuring out the logistics of that in an 800-meter race. Also, try explaining the logic of it to the runners.

The PIL, for example, couldn’t make sense of the guidance. That league still requires runners to wear masks during competition, even when kids find themselves more than six feet apart. I doubt the governor or Oregon Health Authority even know about it. I receive regular emails from parents who believe those in position of authority simply don’t care.

Savannah Lay collapsed this week. I wish it weren’t so. Her mother blames the mask. She says it caused her daughter, who has competed in multiple sports since age 5, to lose consciousness.

We shouldn’t have to wonder.

After Crook County girls basketball player Savannah Lay collapsed during tryouts earlier this week and was taken to the hospital, the Crook County School District is pleading with state leaders to change their mask rules for athletics.

In a Friday letter to Colt Gill, the director of the Oregon Department of Education, Crook County School District superintendent Sarah E. Johnson called for a change to the rule requiring most high school athletes to wear masks.

The Bulletin was sent a copy of the letter, which reads, in part:

“It’s time to consider revising the current mask policy for school athletics. With support from the Crook County School Board, I’m asking Governor Kate Brown, the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Department of Education, and the Oregon Schools Activities Association to revise the mask policy for athletes and consider the dangers of wearing them during competitions and practices. The evidence is growing that wearing masks impacts the flow of oxygen when students are exerting themselves and has the potential to cause serious harm.”

—Bulletin staff report