Another high school gender issue ...

I disagree. I think girls should be allowed to play on boys' teams. If girls can wrestle against boys, they can sure as hell play hockey.

 

Of course she can play with them. That's not the issue. The issue is the league rules state that if there is a girls team, the girl must play on that team. It's a rule and rules are rules ... unless you get a lawyer.

 

"Rules are rules." Yes! Haven't had that in a while.

Forty years ago, girls weren't allowed to play anything. Rules are rules, you know. Damn bitches sued and then the world went to shit.

 

Apples and oranges, and you know it.

 

Every law and rule that has ever been changed in the history of mankind has at one time been defended with "Rules are rules."

 

Sometimes it applies (like if I went to try out for my high school basketball team tomorrow, claiming I still have eligibility left) and sometimes it doesn't (Title IX). My bigger point was that, in these days, there are far too many lawyers involved in high school athletics.

 

Eh, they wanna pay a lawyer, it's not my money. If there's no case, it'll get tossed soon enough.

Regardless of her prospects in college and beyond, kicking her off a team she's been on doesn't seem all that fair.

 

Is she taking the place of a boy who otherwise would not have a place to play? That to me is an important distinction. If she's being moved off the team for the sake of moving her off the team because she is a girl and there is a girls only team that's another issue.

 

If the kid and her parents really cared about getting a college scholarship, they'd know what she does on her high school team doesn't mean shit. It's what she does on her select club team, which is going to be a girls team, that really matters.

 

I don't care if girls play football or wrestle, or if boys play field hockey or volleyball, if their school does not field a girls or boys program in their sport.

The annoying thing is the double standard that is applied so often, whether it be in this case, in transfers, in eligibility, etc., the feeling that the rules everyone must compete by apply to everyone but me or my child.

The high school association says if their school fields a girls team in her sport, she must play on it. She is not being denied a chance to compete. Case closed.

 

Eight years ago, when one of the schools I cover started a girls team, the family of a girl who played on the boys varsity the year before sued to have her stay on the boys team. I don't remember all the details of the case, but the family lost. She played on the girls team for three years and was its best player, a very good player, but not so good that it was a total waste of her time. She went to prep school for a PG year. She is now a senior on a Division I team and rarely gets any playing time.

 

Ah, yes. Reader comments. The standard by which we evaluate all athletic talent at the high school level. Good to know what the anonymous assholes think of her skills.