Folly hockey sticks as schoolboy, 13, hit by ban on playing for girls’ team

Keeling Pilaro, who played hockey growing up in Ireland, has been told that after two years as a member of the girls’ team in New York, he is now too skilled to qualify for an exemption allowing him to compete with girls next season.

Keeling, whose 10 goals and eight assists earned him all-conference honours on New York’s Long Island is appealing against the decision, and a lawyer for his family suggests a court battle could ensue.

An appeals committee said it looked only at his skills, not size or strength, when upholding the decision to keep him off the field. That raises a question of discrimination.

Keeling’s fight appears to be a rare example of a man seeking to take advantage of Title IX, a 40-year-old law enacted to provide women with equal access to athletic opportunities. There are no boys’ high school field hockey teams anywhere on Long Island, or in most of the country.

“It’s really annoying,” the boy said in a recent interview. “I don’t really care if I’m on a girls’ team or a boys’ team – I just want to play.”

Southampton school administrators agree, but they don’t have the final say.

Edward Cinelli, the director of the organisation that oversees high school athletics in Suffolk County, cited a provision in state education law that says administrators are permitted to bar boys from girls’ teams if a boy’s participation “would have a significant adverse effect” on a girl’s opportunity to participate in interschool competition in that sport.

Officials say Keeling’s skills are superior to the girls he plays against, creating an unfair advantage.

Family attorney Frank Scagluso argued that judging the boy’s stick play is subjective, and that many girls playing in Suffolk County have superior skills.

In order to play with the girls, Keeling had to get permission from Suffolk’s mixed-competition committee, which screens players who want to compete on teams of the opposite sex. Mr Cinelli says there have been occasions where girls have been approved to play football, wrestle or compete in other traditional boys sports.

Another appeal hearing is set for May 15.