I was reading an article today about 13 year old Keeling Pilaro from Long Island, New York who had been playing on the Southampton High School Varsity field hockey team last year. This year, however Keeling was banned from competing because Keeling is considered too dominant of a player. I forgot to mention that Keeling Pilaro is the only boy who plays in the league.
Even though it is not listed on the district's athletic governing body's website as a girls sport (see below), the entirety, except for Keeling, of the sport's participants are female.
To me this begs the question, can this body ban Keeling from playing in the sport? Since the claim is that he is too dominant they might be in the clear but on a closer look at his statistics from last year he only ranked 11th in points. Then he must be pushing all these girls around due to his size. Keeling stands at 4' 8" and is playing against girls who are bigger than he is. It seams like there is another reason that he is being kept out of competing and that is simply he is a boy that excels in a traditionally girls sport.
The governing body claims that "The rules state he would be allowed to play if he wasn't the dominant player." So if he was an average player he would be allowed to play, but if he excels he must be not allowed to play. This is sexism pure and simple. since there is only one field hockey team at the school it must be open to both boys and girls. Wrestling and football are a great comparison for this. Both sports are traditionally boys sports but both allows for girls to participate as well.
Why should the school district be punishing a child for playing a sport that he loves? He is from a country, Ireland, that allows both boys and girls to play the sport and since there is only one team at his high school he should be allowed to play on the team. If the district's ban on him playing is upheld should schools be allowed from banning girls from playing football or wrestling? Even though there is only one team for both sports? According to Title IX: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..." This goes both ways for boys and girls. You cannot allow a girl to play football and at the same time ban a boy from playing field hockey. It is simply illegal according to federal law. If we want equity in sports it must be able to go both ways.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/keeling-pilaro-male-field-hockey-player-banned-being-160713816.html
Al Raitt
KIN 577
It is out of doubt that Title IX is usually considered a law whose aim is to guarantee female athletes the same treatment reserved to men, and it is important to remind that, instead, it is a law against gender discrimination in general.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting article cited by Mr. Raitt goes together with another one published by Paul Steinbach on athleticbusiness.com about volleyball; during the Beijing Olympic Games U.S. men’s volleyball team won the gold medal, but despite that America kept on seeing volleyball as a female sport (by the way U.S. volleyball team won the silver medal), in fact while 322 NCAA members sponsor Division I women’s volleyball, only 22 do the same for the man’s team. Talking about scholarships it may be interesting to know why NCAA women’s teams are granted 4,000 full scholarships, while men’s teams have to do with less than 100. With billions of dollars spent on football and basketball, the reason given by Ross Yurk from NCAA sounds like nonsense: “from a facility standpoint, if you have a gym and nets, it’s not that expensive. When you start thinking about travel, scholarships, coaches – you’re adding a salary or two – that’s where it adds up quickly”.
Luckily scholarship-free Division III offers a different scenario, in fact with 48 teams that competed in D III, it’s very close to the 50-team requirement for NCAA sponsorship of a division championship; anyway, right now, always according to Yurk, “without athletic scholarships, sponsoring volleyball is a great way for a school to add male student-athletes who are paying full tuition”.
USA Volleyball claims a greater overall participation in the sport, but with no intercollegiate tournament to make a profit from, men’s volleyball is still an outcast among collegiate sports.
All that being said, what does women’s basketball have that men’s volleyball doesn’t?
Federico Barone
KIN 577