HS boy wants to play in a girls VB team

[uakari]

i'm sure we have discussed different versions of this issue? but the problem obviously is that there's no boy's team for him to join.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/tee ... -1.1168645

and here's a girl QB in a HS football team.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-0 ... m-dimeglio

[Marlow]

I acknowledge my double standard: girls can play on boys' teams; boys cannot play on girls' teams. Deal with it.

[uakari]

as usual, my friend, when you deal with absolutes, you fail. wrong again!

there's no reason why men can't compete against women in chess, shooting or synchro swimming. maybe even gymnastics? didn't the commentators say that mckayla maroney's vault at the olympics was even higher than kohei uchimura's?

[guru]

I've never understood why there's separate Olympic competitions in Shooting

[lonewolf]

I acknowledge my double standard: girls can play on boys' teams; boys cannot play on girls' teams. Deal with it.

PC be damned, this is an obvious axiom.

[Marlow]

I acknowledge my double standard: girls can play on boys' teams; boys cannot play on girls' teams. Deal with it.

PC be damned, this is an obvious axiom.

We are dinosaurs, sir . . .

[j-a-m]

One difference here is that there are unfortunately no football teams for girls, so this is her only option. There are plenty of volleyball teams for boys, though; all he needs to do is transfer to another school. And if the school district were not to allow it, then that would be worth fighting for.

[Pego]

I may get lots of kicks in the teeth for saying this, but I am a hard-ass sexist on this issue. For most sports (excluding the obvious ones - chess, shooting...), I am against the integration of the sexes beyond 14-15. In the final analysis it is unfair to both sides, including the individual that wants to do it.

[Marlow]

I've never understood why there's separate Olympic competitions in Shooting

If men are, on average, XX% stronger than women, then the pistol needs to XX% heavier for men to level the playing field. Keeping your arm steady is directly correlated to how much arm strength you have. Same for bowling and darts. Even chess - the female brain is NOT identical to the male brain, so one must assume (perhaps falsely) that one sex has an advantage over the other. Even in equestrian: the men's legs are longer and arms stronger so their control of the horse can be more 'full'. I bet men even have an advantage in race-car driving - something to do with spatial perception.
I understand and fully support that the rights and responsibilities of men and women must be equal, but the truth of the (PC) matter is that there are indeed some fundamental differences between the male average and the female average. If a woman wants to compete with and against men, I say let her, because it's her choice, acknowledging that she may be at a disadvantage in 95% of the sports she may engage in. But men in women's sports? Not fair. Chalk that up to my advanced antiquidation, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[lonewolf]

How can you argue with Marlow, Pego and Lonewolf?
Through astute observation and experience, we have independently and accurately concluded that girls are different from boys.
Viva la difference.

[Pego]

How can you argue with Marlow, Pego and Lonewolf?
Through astute observation and experience, we have independently and accurately concluded that girls are different from boys.
Viva la difference.

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

[Marlow]

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

If that 120-lb girl had been my daughter and she had told me

she wanted to play football
and
the coach determined she was good enough to play

I would be ALL about it! I wouldn't especially like it, but I'm pretty sure that I raised her to be an independent thinker. Lord knows that she and I don't see eye-to-eye on some things and I LOVE it.

[Pego]

We disagree, I guess .

[lonewolf]

How can you argue with Marlow, Pego and Lonewolf?
Through astute observation and experience, we have independently and accurately concluded that girls are different from boys.
Viva la difference.

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

Whoops, I missed that critical distinction.
Apparently, you and I are the only 100% male chauvanists on the forum.

[uakari]

from that news vid, the boy actually says he holds back in play. you can see he's def. much taller than most of the girls. so this boy's athletic development is actually being held back.

the problem is that so many schools in the US have football teams that consume all the resources so that there's no other sports for the boys: track, gymnastics, wrestling, etc. all being decimated by football. not to mention all the "girlie" sports for boys, like VB, field hockey, etc.

[Conor Dary]

How can you argue with Marlow, Pego and Lonewolf?
Through astute observation and experience, we have independently and accurately concluded that girls are different from boys.
Viva la difference.

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

Whoops, I missed that critical distinction.
Apparently, you and I are the only 100% male chauvanists on the forum.

Hardly....I am with Pego. And if a coach actually claimed something like was hypothesized I think he should be out...

[guru]

I've never understood why there's separate Olympic competitions in Shooting

If men are, on average, XX% stronger than women, then the pistol needs to XX% heavier for men to level the playing field. Keeping your arm steady is directly correlated to how much arm strength you have. Same for bowling and darts. Even chess - the female brain is NOT identical to the male brain, so one must assume (perhaps falsely) that one sex has an advantage over the other.

Uh-huh...

http://www.usashooting.org/news/2012/2/ ... e-shooting

Recent history also suggests that woman can perform alongside men in shooting competitions. At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, female competitor Shan Zhang of China became the Olympic gold medalist that year in mixed-event skeet competition. Over two days of competition she produced a score of 373 out of 375, a new Olympic and world record. She also became the first woman to topple the men in the history of the Olympic Games' shooting competition. Since that time, no mixed events have been held in an Olympic shooting competition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_a ... cs_-_Skeet

[Marlow]

Recent history also suggests that woman can perform alongside men in shooting competitions. At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, female competitor Shan Zhang of China became the Olympic gold medalist that year in mixed-event skeet competition. Over two days of competition she produced a score of 373 out of 375, a new Olympic and world record. She also became the first woman to topple the men in the history of the Olympic Games' shooting competition. Since that time, no mixed events have been held in an Olympic shooting competition.

And a Chinese woman swimmer was faster in a race than Ryan Lochte's split of the same distance; are you suggesting they should compete on an equal level? Zhang was more of an outlier than the men were.

[guru]

And a Chinese woman swimmer was faster in a race than Ryan Lochte's split of the same distance; are you suggesting they should compete on an equal level?

Are you seriously comparing your apple to my watermelon?

Come back to me with your argument when Ye beats Lochte in a head to head race.


edit - Worth noting the FACTS of that non-sequitur marlow lobbed into the discussion. From wiki -

Lochte's overall time was 23.25 seconds faster, 4:05.18, than Ye's, and the times of all 8 finalists in the men's 400m IM were at least 10 seconds faster than Ye's time. When Lochte hit the freestyle leg of the race, he had a comfortable lead over his opponents, whereas Ye was still a body length behind U.S. swimmer Elizabeth Beisel at that point in her race. Phil Lutton, sports editor of the Brisbane Times, observed that Ye "had to hit the burners to motor past Beisel".

[preston]

Youth football leagues routinely rule larger boys ineligible to play among their similarly aged peers. Youth baseball leagues sometimes have rules against how fast a pitch can be thrown and curve balls. There are sometimes good reasons to restrict play among athletes due to ability or size. The separation of boys and girls should MOSTLY fall in this category. It's not sexist, it's sensible. (unlike a bathroom which is more of a suggestion...women and men can share bathrooms with out too much difficulty; we did in college where all the floors and bathrooms were coed).

However, if a girl can make a boys team then I don't have a problem with her playing as long as she isn't treated "like a girl". (Cheryl Miller, [HOF, Olympian and TV analyst] older sister of former Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller, scored a 100 points in a high school game against girls, she could have played on a boys team but she would have never scored 100 points) That means she has to make the team and maybe aside from sharing dressing facilities she gets to be tormented by a lot of the psychological foolishness used against her peers. (If the boys can be called a gutless *****, then she can be called one too! Of course some don't feel either should be called that, but many of the ones who feel that way feel that they shouldn't keep score either...but I digress, again). These girls understand what they're up against, it's the "gentlemen" who want to "protect" them - a protection that won't extend to them a few years later if they're "entertaining" sailers on shore leave or dancing on a table top or a lap at/after a business meeting... Apparently protection is limited to a only high school girls playing sports, especially when "boys will be boys" - even if the boys are later middle-aged men.

You have to be one sorry-assed, news seeking little boy to want to play on a girls team and "compete" against girls. Isn't the reason why he's supposedly annoying everyone is because he wants a college scholarship? The whole point of sport is going all out and which coach would sensibly recruit a kid who wasn't going all out after he fought to play with the girls instead of transferring to a school that had a boys team which would more correctly evaluate his relative ability? Unless, this clown is going to attempt to get a college scholarship to a women's volleyball team.

Nothing to see here. This ill-bred chump should transfer or play another sport.

I can almost expect that from a Westchester County kid...

[26mi235]

Let him play - every time he touches the ball they have to raise the net to the male height.

I suppose this guy wants to run the hurdles race with the female height. Alternatively, we can restrict his testosterone level to that of females.... He fails drug tests if they are higher and he is banned for two years...

[Powell]

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

Who said the girl had to be 120 lb? What if we were talking of Valerie Adams?

[Powell]

Even in equestrian: the men's legs are longer and arms stronger so their control of the horse can be more 'full'.

There's no separation by sex in equestrian, and in the dressage at least, the women clearly dominate.

[Pego]

Hey, it appears that Marlow does not mind to see a 120 lb girl QB thrown to the ground by a 250 lb boy lineman just because there is no girl football team . I do.

Who said the girl had to be 120 lb? What if we were talking of Valerie Adams?

It would not matter to me . I am opposed in principle. Integrate chess, shooting, equestrian, possibly yachting, but keep athletic events segregated once they reached puberty.

[lonewolf]

Has anyone else noted that the thread title says he want ot play "in" a girl's VB team, not "on" the team?

[Marlow]

Has anyone else noted that the thread title says he want ot play "in" a girl's VB team, not "on" the team?

Well, as prepositions go, it's better than 'on top of' or 'under', I suppose . . .

[jhc68]

Years ago where I taught HS, a friend's son was determined to play V-Ball even if it had to be on a the girl's team. He was a very big kid even as a 9th grader and a very skilled player, so with a lot of lobbying from the AD and the parents the school board decided to launch a boy's program. It seemed like the best solution although maybe for some schools with limited V-Ball interests and athletic budgets that is not a viable option. He later became a team captain on a national champion D-1 men's team.

The biggest issue here is that a strong male player really can present physical danger, especially playing on the low women's net. I've seen a couple of very nasty compound dislocations of fingers in men's HS matches when blockers got the wrong angle on very strong, very high jumping hitters. That sort of injury would be much more likely if unskilled girls were attempting to block large male hitters on the 7 ft 6 inch net.

Conversely, it seems clear to me that skilled girls could reasonably play on HS men's teams in specific specialist roles that depend on quickness and technique such as back row defenders or liberos or servers. Extraordinary females could play full-time as starters for male HS teams. For example, my son was an all-everything HS player 20 years ago. Our neighbor, a local HS coach, had a good girl's team put out of the post-season playoffs by Corona del Mar HS. Next morning he told me his girls team had no chance simply because CdM had one girl who was as good as my son... her name was Misty May

[Dutra5]

On my son's then 8th grade football team, the kicker was a girl...the soccer goalie as well. At that age 12/13 she was pretty much the same size as a lot of the boys and it was even tough to "tell" that the kicker was a girl to the opponent since the teams very rarely remove their helmets on the field or even sideline at that age.

In one game the snap got away from the holder and she ran after the ball and picked it up. I've never seen a group of kids scramble to get near her as her teammates did in a protective fashion. It was both hysterical and fun to watch. She eventually took a knee. Her mom told me that she always participated in contact drills and wanted to run with the ball when she picked it up. She wasn't/isn't a young lady who appears to have a bit extra testosterone either. Now as a HS senior she dates my son who still plays football and she's headed to the Naval Academy with a soccer letter. She's still a better kicker than the kicker on their school's team but sticks to soccer.