Tensions are high in a Massachusetts school district where a high school female field hockey player suffered “significant facial and dental injuries” after being hit in the face on a shot from a male opponent, an official said Wednesday.
Bill Runey, the Dighton-Rehoboth superintendent of schools, appeared on “OutKick The Morning” with Charly Arnolt and described outrage in the district.
“It’s very hot. The tension is very high,” Runey said. “At first, it was a sense of trauma. I went to meet the bus when the girls returned from Swampscott because I wanted to let them know that they had the support of the district. That we were gonna have resources available to them the next school day with our counseling staff. And the trauma that I saw in their eyes, the sadness I saw in their eyes, and in the eyes of the coaches is something that I will never, ever forget.
“And now, it has turned to an outrage because it doesn’t seem as if anybody is willing to listen to change.”
Runey’s remarks came after Dighton-Rehoboth field hockey captain Kelsey Bain wrote a letter to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) urging it to make a change to its rules. She wrote that the “MIAA needs to do better.”
Bain cited an article from the New Boston Post that said 41 boys played on girls’ field hockey teams during the 2019-20 school year. Bain suggested the MIAA create a new league.
“There is likely more interest, but the stigma of boys playing on a girl’s team is probably a deterrent,” Bain wrote. “I am sure school districts can institute co-op teams to create further opportunities for males to play in their own division, which I assume you are already aware of because, under rule 34 of the MIAA handbook, there is a division for boys’ field hockey listed under the Fall Sports category.
You have a chance to change the negative publicity the MIAA has been receiving due to the incident that happened on Thursday night by moving forward with the proposal for a seven versus seven boys league.”
Bain recalled the horror she and her teammates felt when they witnessed the incident.
The shrieks and screams of fear and pain that projected from her after being hit filled the stadium,” Bain wrote. The looks of horror and shock on the faces of the girls surrounding her were also chilling.”
“Following the injury, my teammates were sobbing not only in fear for their teammate but also in fear that they had to go back out onto the field and continue a game, playing against a male athlete who hospitalized one of our own. The traumatic event sheds light on the rules and regulations of male athletes participating in women’s sports.”
The MIAA cites the Massachusetts Equal Rights Amendment, adopted in 1976, which was extended to scholastic sports three years later.
The MIAA said it “understands” safety concerns but inclusion has trumped that safety.
“We respect and understand the complexity and concerns that exist regarding student safety. However, student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one gender from participating on teams of the opposite gender,” the MIAA said in a statement. “The arguments generally fail due to the lack of correlation between injuries and mixed-gender teams.”
You have a chance to change the negative publicity the MIAA has been receiving due to the incident that happened on Thursday night by moving forward with the proposal for a seven versus seven boys league.”
The incident was a horrible thing to watch. Injuries happen but should boys play on girls’ teams when it’s been proven they are physically more dominant? Girls will play on boys’ teams because in many cases there are no girl’s teams to support the sport they want to play. But in this case, there was a way to create a boys team.