November 24, 2008

Indiana Girl Sues to play Baseball

Logan Young has played baseball against boys since she was five years old and she wants to continue doing so in high school.

"In this day and age, a girl should have the opportunity to participate on an equal footing with the boys in high school sports and the IHSAA precludes that," Tae Sture, one of the family's attorneys, said Monday.

"Our feeling is, quite frankly, there's no rational reason for it," he said.

An IHSAA rule prohibits girls from trying out for baseball if their school has a softball team on the basis that the sports are comparable. But the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis argues that baseball and softball aren't the same sport, so girls should be able to try out for baseball.


I think there is a rational reason for the rule.  For every spot on the boys baseball team a girl takes, a boy doesn't play.  If you say, "That boy can just try out for the girls softball team."  Well, just how many boys can be on the girls softball team before it's no longer the girls softball team?  How long will a school keep two coed ball teams around?  Why not just have one?    Not everything is perfectly equal and perfectly fair and that's an important thing to learn, too.  How many boys would like to play volleyball if only the IHSAA would let them?

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