Reacting to a commonwealth court judge’s decisions, the PIAA enacted by-laws seven years ago that made it close to impossible for boys to play on girls high school sports teams.
But the subject of whether boys should be allowed to play on girls teams has arisen again. Right here in the WPIAL, which belongs to the PIAA, there are a few cases of boys playing on girls teams and schools, knowingly or not, are violating PIAA by-laws.
Greensburg Salem High School had three boys on its girls lacrosse team this spring. One of them (Landon Morrison) had games with six and four goals, and two other contests with two goals. Another player (Cullen Carney) resembles a football lineman and has a huge size advantage over most other girls. Carney also played for Greensburg Salem’s ice hockey team.
Whether the school misunderstood the PIAA by-laws or simply ignored them isn’t the question. Whatever the reason, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said Greensburg Salem is in clear violation of PIAA rules and could face penalties from the PIAA.
Woodland Hills also used boys on its field hockey team last fall and in other years, and Lombardi said Woodland Hills also violated PIAA by-laws.
Lombardi said the PIAA was not aware that Greensburg Salem or Woodland Hills used boys on a girls team until informed by the Post-Gazette. Lombardi said the PIAA has not received any other reports of boys playing on girls teams and said, “They should not be playing. It’s a violation of the by-laws. The penalties would be because the school is interpreting the by-laws incorrectly. The district committee (WPIAL) could review the schools’ decision-making and apply anything from our penalty section of the by-laws. But this a violation of the by-laws.”
The penalties could be anything from public censure, to probation, to suspension of the sport.
But the story within this story is the WPIAL knew Greensburg Salem and Woodland Hills were using boys on girls teams, and Woodland Hills athletic director Ron Coursey is a member of the WPIAL board of directors. WPIAL executive director Amy Scheuneman said the league did not stop Greensburg Salem or Woodland Hills because PIAA rules state it is up to the school principal to decide whether four criteria is met to allow boys on a girls team.
“There was communication prior to the season [about Greensburg Salem’s boys playing on the girls lacrosse team],” Scheuneman said. “Their principal had to certify that they could play. Moving forward, prior to any season, we will have to evaluate decisions based on previous participation. We can ask them to provide information on why [the boys] are not providing a competitive advantage.”
Lombardi said the PIAA will address the WPIAL on the matter of boys playing on girls teams. Lombardi was clearly not pleased with Greensburg Salem and Woodland Hills, but their cases again bring up the debate of whether boys should be allowed to play on girls teams.
“For years, we heard clamoring from the athletic director’s association of how unfair it was for boys to be playing field hockey and other girls sports,” Lombardi said. “Putting girls safety first was the biggest concern.
“We were following a decision that was made in the 1970s, but the court ruled that we could write our own provisions for boys playing girls sports, which we did. And they were unanimously supported by our board [in 2014]. Maybe we need to re-educate some folks because what is going on is not proper protocol and needs to be corrected.”
What the PIAA by-laws say
The reasons that boys were originally permitted to play on girls teams in Pennsylvania was an interpretation of a 1975 injunction — Packel vs. PIAA — where a court, citing the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment, declared a PIAA by-law unconstitutional that said, “girls shall not compete or practice against boys in any athletic contest.”
Back then, boys playing on girls teams was not even considered, but according to Title IX, introduced in 1972, no person could be discriminated against on the basis of gender in any educational program that receives federal funding. That meant boys on girls teams. Lo and behold, starting in the 2000s, the PIAA started seeing more boys playing girls sports and the PIAA could do nothing about it because of their interpretation of the rulings in the 1970s.
A PIAA survey of state high schools in 2013 showed a number of schools reporting boys playing girls sports. For example, 38 schools had boys playing field hockey and 14 had boys playing girls volleyball. Another 163 schools reported boys playing girls sports, but did not identify the sports.
The PIAA and many member schools wanted something to be done. Then in 2011, Mary and Jim Grenen, lawyers and parents of a Fox Chapel High School female athlete, got together with the PIAA and brought a case to Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg. The Grenens argued that boys shouldn’t be permitted to play on girls teams because it denies opportunities for girls, increases a risk of injury and creates a competitive advantage.
Judge B. Kevin Brobson issued an opinion that essentially freed the PIAA to write new policies or by-laws that would bar boys from playing on girls teams, but also limit the opportunities for girls to play on boys teams.
So in June of 2014, the PIAA came up with new by-laws concerning boys playing girls sports, and vice versa. A girl could play on a boys team, but only if the student’s school does not sponsor a comparable girls team in that sport (softball and baseball are not viewed as comparable sports). That’s why girls can play football because there are no girls football teams in the PIAA. And it is a common occurrence in the WPIAL for a girl to play on a boys golf team when a school doesn’t have a girls golf team.
The PIAA then made rules that, in essence, made it virtually impossible for a boy to play on a girls team. Under PIAA by-laws, a boy can play on a girls team only if the school does not sponsor a boys team in that sport and the principal determines that all four of the following criteria are met:
• The school provides fewer opportunities for boys to participate than girls.
• The boy would not displace any girl from the team’s roster.
• The boy would not, due to his size, athletic ability and/or other characteristics pose an increased risk of harm to opponents.
• The boy would not provide his team with a significant competitive advantage.
Lombardi pointed out that all four criteria must be met for a boy to play — and Greensburg Salem did not meet even one of the four.
“It’s not one, or the other, or the other. It’s all four,” Lombardi said. “As soon as that boy stepped on the field, it displaces a girl.”
Why did they play?
Scheuneman stated the WPIAL did not stop the three Greensburg Salem boys from playing for the girls lacrosse team because Greensburg Salem principal Dave Zilli determined it would be OK. Besides Morrison and Carney, both seniors, the other boy who played is goalkeeper Jeremiah Myers.
Zilli said the reason he let the boys play is because it was a “numbers issue” with the girls team. Greensburg Salem does not have a boys lacrosse team.
“We couldn’t really add a boys team,” Zilli said. “I think it helps give our team an opportunity to compete in practice. Our team would probably be in jeopardy if we didn’t have [the boys].”
Greensburg Salem coach Jessica Drury said the process of adding boys to the roster was started last year under former athletic director Mike Burrell.
“We welcomed them onto our team, not because we were pressured to do so, but because we wanted to give them an opportunity to play in some sort of way,” Drury said.
But Lombardi confirmed that a small roster is not a reason to allow boys to play on girls teams and does not fit the criteria for allowing boys to play.
“They should go recruit a few more [girls] players,” Lombardi said. “They could’ve made a club team maybe to play on weekends against other club teams. You can’t just say you’re short two players and go get two boys. It’s unsafe.”
When Zilli was asked about the PIAA criteria for letting boys play, he was hesitant to answer. When asked if the boys fit even one of the four criteria, he said, “They’re not displacing a girl on the roster.”
But Drury said this year’s team started with 19 players, including the three boys. Only 12 players are on the field for a lacrosse team.
“The second one of those boys stepped on the field, they are displacing a girl,” Lombardi said.
When asked if the boys gave Greensburg Salem a competitive advantage or if they might have increased the risk of injury to opponents, Zilli said, “From a distance that could be. But I can’t speak to that.”
Morrison scored six goals against Winchester Thurston and Winchester Thurston coach Jeannie Kirk said, “He was very quick and he would get the ball downfield and shoot. He was definitely the fastest player and hard to stop.”
Greensburg Salem, though, finished the season with a 1-11 record. Coincidentally, Drury said, the only win came when none of the three boys played.
Drury said, “I don’t think they made us more competitive just because they’re boys. They do have athleticism, but I think our other players also are fast and have athleticism as well.”
Woodland Hills’ Coursey said his school allowed a few boys to play on the field hockey team because the team also needed players.
“We’ve had boys on our field hockey team for the last four years,” Coursey said. “We just didn’t have enough numbers to field a team without incorporating the boys.”
When a girls team takes boys on its team, it is automatically ineligible for the WPIAL playoffs. If girls volleyball and girls tennis teams use boys, the teams must play in the WPIAL boys regular season.
“There’s definitely a discussion to be had whether or not [boys playing] gives a competitive advantage or equals the playing field,” Coursey said. “But we still struggle to win games in field hockey. We won only one or two games last season. We’re not producing a juggernaut.”
But should there not be concerns from schools about possible negligence for allowing a boy to play on a girls team, when PIAA rules essentially prohibit it?
“The second piece is that there is absolutely a concern about the injury factor,” Coursey said. “We get emails and concerns about boys playing against their daughters. It’s a real and tangible concern. But at the end of the day, it has not tipped the scales in our favor. … I understand that you’re always going to have an argument about this. But it’s very debatable when you look at the categories of what fits into some of them. It’s not really black or white.”
But the bottom line is using boys on girls teams is usually a violation of PIAA by-laws.
*story by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
(*) WhitePrideHomeSchool.com
