DENVER — This isn’t about Naomi Osaka. Not really. The tennis superstar should take her time away, skip the next Open, whatever helps.

Sound mental health is an important deal, and if hers is in rough shape, do what you need to do.

But here’s my question: Where was the sports media’s sudden interest in the mental health of young athletes for the past 15 months? You can’t click on a sports website, any sports website, without someone coming to her defense. Why is mental health #important when it affects a 23-year-old woman with $55 million in endorsements … and all but ignored when the well-being of everyday young athletes is at stake?

It’s a serious question about the most serious subject in America right now — the state of our kids’ mental health. There’s “a pediatric mental health state of emergency,” according to the president of Children’s Hospital Colorado. Read that again: “A pediatric mental health state of emergency.” Many of the afflicted are young athletes. And their current situation — a critical situation, experts say — has been neglected in the same circles now cradling a young millionaire. Guess a rich person’s mental health matters more than the neighbor kid’s.

Maybe you’ve got a better explanation.

Unless you read this space, the dangerous mental health state of Colorado’s youngest athletes almost didn’t exist. I’ve written about it a bunch because I talk to a bunch of coaches who see a bunch of their kids are in a dark place. But go look. See if you can find, I don’t know, one other report lamenting Colorado’s anti-science mandate of wearing masks during high school basketball games — when neighboring states had no such requirement with comparable outcomes in relation to COVID-19. See if you can spot any reports questioning the ridiculous quarantines of healthy high school athletes. Then consider what a school year from hell did to kids’ mental health. It wasn’t pretty. But at least it was mostly ignored in news headlines so the people whose actions directly created this state of emergency — namely Gov. Jared Polis and his control freaks at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment — can pretend it didn’t happen. It did happen. It’s still happening.

“It’s been devastating to see suicide become the leading cause of death for Colorado’s children,” Children’s Hospital Colorado president and CEO Jena Hausmann told The Gazette’s Debbie Kelley last week.

“We’re overrun with kids attempting suicide and suffering from other forms of major mental health illness,” she said. “There are so many organizations equally overwhelmed; the sheer magnitude of this situation warrants a different level of support.”

This can’t be stated any clearer: For a person under 18 years old COVID-19 is no more of a serious threat than the flu. This isn’t me saying that; it’s the CDC saying that. Read it for yourself. So if they don’t mask kids during flu season, why the hell does Colorado mask kids for COVID-19? To protect the teachers? There’s a vaccine. It’s a miracle. It works. If you’re scared, get the vaccine. But stop screwing with kids. They’re not “vectors,” as Polis said. They’re not human shields. They’re kids, and they’ve suffered too long for a disease that rarely affects them.

“While kids did fairly well initially in the pandemic, the cumulative stress of schools (being closed full or part time) and not being able to do the things they normally do has sort of come to a head,” Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs chief medical officer Dr. Mike DiStefano recently told The Gazette.

Good on Osaka for stepping aside from the tennis circuit, if that’s what needed to happen.

“As athletes we are taught to take care of our body, and perhaps the mental and emotional aspect gets short shrift,” tennis icon Martina Navratilova tweeted in support.

There you go. Now apply the same approach to young people from all backgrounds, not only the rich and famous.