Somebody needs to hit THIS guy

[Mickalino]

What a loser.

Not Your Average Skirt Chaser

By Rick Reilly

Sports Illustrated

The strongest high school field hockey player in all of western Massachusetts stands 6'5", weighs 205 pounds and would look better in his skirt if he shaved his legs. His name is Ryan Sherburne, and he led Mohawk Trail Regional High in Shelburne Falls to the state semifinals this year. Problem is, he's not within a RuPaul chorus line of being a girl.

Bigger and faster than a Chrysler minivan, Ryan, 17, has a slap shot that nearly separated a few girls from their sports bras this year. And people are mad about it. "What's it gonna take, a girl being seriously hurt?" asks Longmeadow High coach Ann Simons. "Parents could sue me for having their kids out there."

One of Ryan's shots doubled over a girl on an opposing team, forcing her to the sideline. When Ryan's father, Bill, asked her coach if the girl's stomach felt better, the coach snarled, "Stomach? Put it this way: If your son was hit where she got hit, he'd still be lying on the field."

There have been a lot of snarls in Ryan's direction, and he has heard them all.

Football field is that way, Bubba.

Pick on somebody your own size!

Hey, sweetheart, you free after the game?

"It doesn't bother me," says Ryan, a senior midfielder who first tried field hockey five years ago while rehabbing from a knee injury. "I just play, and people can say what they want."

They're saying a lot. Parents are worried about their daughters' safety. Mothers on opposing sidelines have screamed, "Kill him! Knock him on his *** !"

"It gets to the point where I don't want him going to the bathroom by himself," says Mohawk Trail coach Lynn Hoeppner. "To hear adults taunt a kid.... Hard to believe. I say let everyone play."

Fine. But does Ryan have to play with girls? "He loves the game," says Bill, "and there's nowhere else to play."

Ryan isn't the only one. Seven of the 21 field hockey teams in western Massachusetts had at least one boy on their rosters this season. Two of the last three Division I state champs have started boys. Amherst-Pelham Regional High's jayvee girls were led by 5'10", 220-pound former football lineman Bradley Bell, who's a freshman and should play on the varsity next year. Longmeadow High freshman Maria Koenigs, who's about the size of a parking meter, came home in tears after a game against Bell. "I was scared," she says, "and I don't think he has a right to come into our game and make us scared. Besides, what self-respecting guy would wear a skirt to play a game?"

Not only is Ryan unashamed to wear the Warriors' pleated plaid skirt on the field, even in front of his girlfriend, but he also wears it to school on game days, as do all his teammates.

Opposing coach: C'mon, girls. I'll bet he puts his skirt on two legs at a time, just like you do!

Boys are a problem that's whittling away at the fabric of field hockey in Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania. "Playing with boys is awful!" one girl wrote on an Internet field hockey site. "When you win, people think it's only because of the boys on your team. It's so defeating."

For feminists it's a nasty little issue. For one thing the reason Ryan can play is that Massachusetts has an equal rights amendment in its constitution.

Eight years ago the state's Superior Court ruled that the amendment applied to athletics. That meant boys could not be barred from playing on girls' teams. Even though field hockey is as male as jock itch everywhere else in the world, the U.S. has zero boys' high school teams. "We lost in court so many times," says Paul Wetzel of the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, which appealed the court ruling, "that we gave up. [The decision] doesn't make sense, but there's nothing we can do."

Of course a judge's allowing it doesn't make it right. True, girls play on some teams in boys' sports, but they don't fundamentally change those sports. Ryan Sherburne changes the girls' game, as does Brad Bell.

These parents must have half a brain to permit their hulking teenage piles of testosterone to go out in half a dress and whomp on girls half their size. Yeah, they have the constitutional right to do so, but not the moral right. The next dad who allows it gets a field hockey shot right where it hurts.

And that ain't the stomach.

[ by Mick on November 21, 2001.]

[bulldog]

just another example of how the PC world has caused people to turn off their brains and stop using their common sense.

I am sure if the matter were investigated further, the county could sponsor a boy's league that would draw enough interest so the size/strength/injury factor could be lessened by the boys having their own teams.

Still, I had to chuckle somewhat at the attitude of some of the parents.

If their girls were playing on a boy's team and the boys' parents took issue with the girls presence, these same parents would be incensed and threatening an ACLU-sponsored lawsuit for violation of their rights.

[SkinsThug]

Forget about a men's field hockey team. That is most violent sport known to man -- way too dangerous.

Leave it to the women.

[NavyDave]

I LOVE It.

After forcing places like the Citadel and VMI to comform and demanding money from football and basketball in college fund women sports, it's nice to see the reverse of it.

Now if we can only get some guys to force integration in those all girls schools.

[Om]

Okay, I volunteer. Anything for the cause.

[SonnyJ]

You reap what you sow.

I don't see what thrill a guy would have playing against a bunch of chicks (except the obvious), but you can't have it both ways.

"Some animals are more equal than others."

[SPare]

How's this for another sports gender bender for feminsits to grill over.

Women's tennis stars have started to make a lot more money than men's stars, and rightfully so, since they are the ones that are drawing the fans.

Now, on the basis of equal pay for work of equal value, men should be actually making 30-50% more, since they must win 3 of 5 sets, whereas women must only win 2 of 3 sets (hence longer playing times).

__________

Of course, there are feminists who are against the US removing the taliban from power in Afghanistan, thereby proposing that the most misogynist regime in recent history stay in power. Sorta shows where the priorities are among the feminazi set.

------------------

[The Sisko]

My reaction was exactly the same as your's NavyDave. It's good to see that what's good for the goose is good for the gander too. Now I guess they know (just a wee bit) how we feel when our teams/programs get gutted or inexorably changed when women are allowed to play.

Mind you, I don't have a problem with women's athletics and women playing "men's" sports either on their own teams or alongside the men. However, what I do have a problem with is the feminazi set that feels that they should be allowed to be on men's teams, but the other way around is just BLASPHEMY!!! I say, if you're gonna do it for one by God you gotta do it for both.

Somebody tell Ryan to get a shot or two in for me.

[ by Yusuf06 on November 21, 2001.]

[indyskinsfan]

Uh Oh, don't look, but men may be arguing next, to "switch and prance" on the runway in modeling shows to level the playing field for lucrative contracts. The ACLU is smiling all the way to Congress..

Cindy Crawford where are you????????

just kidding