Girls Rule - Boys Drool

Came across this article online tonight and thought some of you might find it interesting.

Girl kicked off boys team for being too good?
by Sandy Maple May 20th 2008

12-year-old Jaime Nared is an excellent basketball player. Since second grade, she's been demonstrating her Jordan-like skills on a boys team at The Hoop, a private basketball facility in Beaverton, Oregon. She's been known to score 30 points in a game and regularly runs circles around her male counterparts.

But last month, seemingly out of nowhere, her coach was informed by Hoop officials that Jaime had to go. The reason, they claim, is that league rules prohibit mixed-gender teams. This was news to Coach Michael Abraham, who has been coaching basketball for 32 years. "I never saw the rule," he says. "If I'd known about it, I wouldn't have put any of my teams in the league. Besides, she's been playing on this team since second grade, and she plays on our team when we travel around the region. There's never been any problem in any event, not one word of complaint."

Well, nobody complained about it until last month, when several parents let Hoop management know they weren't happy about Jaime's presence on the team. They say their sons don't play as well against her because they are nice boys who have been taught not to get rough with girls. They also believe that having a girl on the floor is distracting and preventing their boys from focusing on the game.

Coach Abraham, as well as Jaime's parents, think the real issue here is that this 12-year-old girl is making the boys look bad. "I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents," says Jaime's mom, Reiko Williams. "The next day, she came home and said they wouldn't let her play with the boys anymore."

Hoop officials insist that they are just belatedly enforcing the rules that have existed the entire time Jaime has been playing for them. After a failed appeal, she is now playing with the girls - on a sixth grade team as well as a non-traveling high school team.

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