Jacob
Stevens was a proud member of his school’s women’s field hockey team last fall,
but will not be granted the same opportunity this year.
Stevens,
one of four boys who helped lead the East Lansing High School girls’ field
hockey team to the state playoffs last fall, was upset when the school board
voted unanimously to ban boys from playing on girls’ teams Tuesday night.
The
policy – favored 9-0 and set to take effect immediately – bans boys’ participation on
the girls’ field hockey, volleyball, and softball teams, alleging that the
size, speed, and power of male athletes poses a hazard for female players.
“Not
every guy wants to play football, basketball or baseball,” said Stevens, who
enjoys the excitement and skill involved in field hockey and was looking
forward to playing the game his senior year.
With the
new policy, he will no longer be able to do so, as there are not enough boys
interested in field hockey to form a complete men’s team. Stevens said that he never received any complaints about his
presence from his female teammates.
On
the other hand, Sandra Adler, parent to a senior on last year’s field hockey
team and an all-state consensus pick as player of the year when she played 30
years ago, said that “there probably are girls who want to play on the boys
football or baseball teams, but they are not allowed.”
Thus, she thinks that
simply because there aren’t enough boys interested in a sport to field their
own team does not justify them joining the women’s teams.
“I just don’t think
it is healthy mentally or physically to have the boys and girls playing on the
same team,” she said.
But
East Lansing High School athletic director Hugh Baker said that if safety is
the issue of concern, the new policy could hurt the athletics program, for the girls
would have to forfeit any games in which the opponents have boys on their team.
Unfortunately,
some of East Lansing’s opponents are small schools that would not have enough
players if they did not include both boys and girls. According to Baker, had this policy been in
effect last year, the field hockey team would have had to sacrifice their
winning season and forfeit at least 10 of their 18 games.
“It would
be unfair to force our field hockey team to have a losing record every year
because it has to forfeit all those games,” Baker said.
Jane
Tribitt, the school board member who proposed the ban based on complaints from
parents in both the home and away districts, said that there are also all-female teams who did
not want to play East Lansing because there were boys on the team.
The size and physicality of the boys can
intimidate the girls, she said. She, too, believes “it
is a matter of safety.”
“I
think other schools will adopt policies similar to this one and ban boys from
their teams as well,” Tribitt said. “The question of
forfeiting games will then become a moot point.”
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