Tag Archives: Sports

Standing Up For Women Athletes

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On Friday, Zero Hedge posted an article about a soccer team in the NorthWest Association, a league in Australia.

The article reports:

Calling itself the “biggest LGBTQIA+ women’s and non-binary football club in the world,” the Flying Bats FC has made international headlines for fielding 5 self-identifying transgender players, with at least nine transgender players in the wider NorthWest Association.

Critics have said the Bat’s domination of the four-week pre-season Beryl Ackroyd Cup, which followed an undefeated season in 2023 that produced scorelines disproportionate to other teams’ results, was a direct result of the inclusion of male-born transgender players.

According to the feminist and pro-woman online news source, Reduxx, president of St. Patrick’s Football Club Frank Parisi said a March discussion over the Flying Bats FC’s ease of victories had prompted an informal meeting with stakeholders of the Northwest Sydney Football Association to address “concerns around how implausible it has become for any team to win against the Flying Bats as well as physical safety concerns.”

Incensed by the Flying Bats’ domination, other clubs asked the league’s governing body Football NSW to force them into playing in a mixed-sex league.

One club official told the Daily Telegraph, “Our girls are here to play for fun and expect to play in the female competition. They did not sign up for a mixed competition. It was so disheartening for them to see the huge difference in ability—they’re killing it.”

The involvement of transgender athletes in sports is a current hot-button issue, as policymakers grapple with how to balance the effects on women’s players, versus the “rights” of female-identifying players born as biological men

Any soccer team with biological males on it is going to beat a team composed of only biological women. Although there are occasionally women who have the muscle structure to compete with men, they are rare. This is totally unfair competition. It is like adding five professional baseball players to a high school team so that they can have a winning season. Kudos to the women who walked away from the unfair competition.

Common Sense In College Athletics

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On Monday, WND posted an article about a recent ruling by The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).

The article reports:

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) announced Monday that only biological females would be allowed to play in women’s sports.

The organization’s Council of Presidents voted to approve a policy allowing “only students whose biological sex is female” in its women’s sports competitions, according to The Washington Post. The policy will go into effect on Aug. 1 in time for the 2024-2025 season.

“We are unwavering in our support of fair competition for our student-athletes,” Jim Carr, president and CEO of the NAIA, said, according to the Washington Post. “It is crucial that NAIA member institutions, conferences, and student-athletes participate in an environment that is equitable and respectful. With input from our member institutions and the Transgender Task Force, the NAIA’s Council of Presidents has confirmed our path forward.”

,,,The policy will allow biological females who identify as transgender to participate in the men’s categories. Female athletes who have begun “masculinizing hormone therapy” can participate in “all activities that are internal to the institution” and any “external competition that is not a countable contest as defined by the NAIA.”

It is interesting to me that women who are transitioning to men can compete in men’s sports, but men who are transitioning to women cannot compete in women’s sports. That might actually be an acknowledgement of the fact that there are basic biological differences between men and women that transitioning to the other sex does not change. It should also be noted that if a person transitions, they will be on medication for the rest of their life because the body will keep producing the chemicals that are appropriate to the sex of the person at birth.

I would have liked to see this ruling apply to anyone transitioning, but at least it prevents the unfair competition that has been occurring in women’s sports.

 

Addressing A Politically-Created Problem

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Breitbart reported the following yesterday:

The New Hampshire House Education Committee will hold a public hearing on Tuesday on HB 1251, legislation to protect female athletic programs from men, or transgender women, who want to compete in girls’ and women’s sporting events.

The bill — sponsored by New Hampshire Republicans Mark Pearson, Judy Aron, Regina Birdsell, Linda Camarota, Linda Gould, Kathleen Hoelzel, Alicia Lekas, Jeanine Notter, Katherine Prudhomme-O’Brien, Kim Rice, and Ruth Ward — states it is about “Discrimination Protection in Public Schools.”

The article reports the reaction to the bill:

Organizations for and against the bill are mobilizing the public. Save Women’s Sports and Cornerstone are hoping for the legislation to become law.

Cornerstone wrote in a notice about the public hearing:

Female athletes deserve a level playing field. They should not have to compete against biological males for a spot on the podium, even if those males claim a female gender identity. Biological males are already starting to dominate women’s competitive sports.

The Citizens Count website is reaching out to people who support transgender sports.

If the bill becomes law it would be effective 60 days after its passage.

Athletic scholarships are one ticket to college for athletic high school girls. In recent years many of these girls have lost scholarship opportunities because of losing to high school boys transitioning or claiming to identify as girls. Anyone who understands basic biology understands that this is simply unfair. I don’t have an answer to a transgender high school student who wants to complete athletically. Do we need a transgender athletic program? I don’t know. What I do know is that letting boys compete in girls’ sports is simply unfair to girls.

When Our Legal System Abandons Common Sense

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NJ.com posted an article recently about a seven-year legal case involving a junior varsity baseball coach.

The article explains:

John Suk sits with shoulders slouched and his head down at the defendant’s table in Courtroom 301, a stuffy wood-paneled space inside the Somerset County judicial complex. The 31-year-old middle school teacher scribbles in a notebook as his reputation is shredded.

The plaintiff’s attorneys in Civil Docket No. L-000629-15 have spent two full days portraying the co-defendant as an inattentive and unqualified lout. He is, they argue, a villain who destroyed the future of a teenager he was supposed to protect.

So what horrible crime is this man charged with?

The article continues:

“He must be held accountable for what he did,” one of the plaintiff’s two attorneys tells jurors during opening arguments.

The attacks intensify when Suk takes the witness stand to defend himself on a split-second decision he made seven years earlier. He is accused of taking a reckless course of action that showed a callous disregard for another person’s safety.

He sounds like an awful person. Then you remember what Suk did to end up here.

He instructed a player he was coaching during a junior varsity baseball game to slide.

Not into an active volcano.

Not into a shark tank.

Into third base.

This is the crux of the story:

The visiting team was leading, 6-0, in the top of the second inning when Mesar, batting for the second time, laced a line drive over the left fielder’s head.

Two runs scored. Mesar rounded second and headed for third. And next, a sickening sound echoed across the diamond as he hit the ground.

“POP!”

As Mesar wailed in agony, Suk (pronounced SOOK) rushed to his side. So did the player’s father, Rob Mesar, who was keeping the scorebook in the dugout. An ambulance arrived. No one knew it then, but that promising freshman — two innings into his high school career — would never play another baseball game.

“I felt bad for my parents,” Jake Mesar, now 22 and attending Rutgers, testifies on the second day of the trial. “They would never be able to see me play.”

Baseball was the least of his worries. Even after three surgeries, the ankle was not improving — one doctor even presented amputation as a possible outcome. A specialist from the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, Robert Rozbruch, found post-traumatic arthritis and signs of necrosis — evidence the bone was dying.

Mesar needed two more surgeries, including one to inject stem cells into the ankle tissue, and he was fit with an external fixator, a stabilizing frame to keep the bones properly positioned. The injury improved, but Rozbruch told the once-active teenager to avoid high-impact activities. Even jogging.

When it comes time for Rozbruch to testify, he abandons the clinical language of his profession and makes it clear that Mesar’s baseball dreams died on third base that day.

“He will never recover fully,” the doctor says.

It is more than a physical injury. Mesar has endured frequent bouts of depression and a pair of panic attacks, including one that sent him from a family party on Christmas Eve to the emergency room. The injury is, as his lawyer tells the jury, “something he has to live with every minute, every hour, every day of his life.”

All of this, to use a decidedly non-legal word, sucks. How can anyone sit here, listen to his story and not have your heart break?

Still, injuries happen. That is at the cold reality of sports. Did the coach sitting with his head down at the defense table really ruin this kid’s life?

The coach won the case, but the article asks an interesting question at the end:

I ask him (John Suk) to consider the other scenario: What would have happened if he lost?

“It’s the end of high school sports,” he says. “The coaching profession would be under heavy scrutiny for everything that happens. Coaches are going to have to have insurance like doctors have for malpractice. School districts are not going to want to take the risk of having sports.”

He takes a long pull from his bottle of water.

The clouds that had covered the sky for most of the day are clearing, giving hope that North Brunswick’s summer team might not lose another day off the calendar to bad weather.

The case is closed. The weight is lifted. He checks his watch, shakes my hand, then heads off to find his car. He has to hurry.

He has a baseball game to coach.

People get injured in sports. Coaches do what they can to prevent injuries, but injuries happen. This lawsuit should have been dropped the moment it showed up in court.

Sad News From The World Of Track And Field

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The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that a biological male who identifies as a woman won the NCAA women’s track championship over the weekend.

The article reports:

The NCAA boasts of its “inclusion of transgender student-athletes” because they believe in and are committed to “diversity, inclusion and gender equity among its student-athletes, coaches and administrators. We seek to establish and maintain an inclusive culture that fosters equitable participation for student-athletes and career opportunities for coaches and administrators from diverse backgrounds.”

The left is completely destroying women’s sports.

Recall, “Rachel” McKinnon is a man who won the women’s cycling world championship in October of last year — all he had to do was show up and say he was a woman named Rachel and next thing you know he’s the world champion.

Two biological males have also crushed female competitors in high school track in Connecticut, ultimately destroying scholarship opportunities for young girls.

Meanwhile the feminists are silent on this issue.

This is really a shame. Women who would have been able to get college scholarships based on their athletic ability will now be overshadowed by men claiming to be women. I can’t imagine a woman wanting to compete in a sport against a man–men have different body structure and different muscle structure than women–whether they are ‘transitioning’ or not. The decision to let men compete against women goes against all common sense and all biology.

Sports Is A Lot More Complicated Than It Used To Be

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ESPN is reporting that Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion runner, has lost her appeal against proposed rules to limit her testosterone levels.

The article explains:

The ruling means Semenya will have to begin medically reducing her testosterone levels within the next week if she wants to compete in the world championships in Doha, Qatar, in September.

The South African runner, who won gold in the 800 meters in 2012 and 2016, was challenging proposals brought by the sport’s governing body — the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) — to enforce limits on testosterone levels of female athletes with differences in sexual development (DSDs).

The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s panel of three judges gave a complex verdict but ultimately rejected Semenya’s case in favour of the governing body’s desire to protect fair competition among female athletes.

The article continues:

In April 2018, the IAAF introduced new rules that meant female athletes with differences in sexual development like Semenya would have to bring their testosterone levels in line with those of other female athletes.

The IAAF argued it was preserving fair competition, but Semenya — aware that the rules would have a significant impact on her career — believed she was being discriminated against and took her case to CAS.

…Semenya could decide to undergo testosterone-reducing treatment in the next week to continue running the 800m, but her lawyers have previously argued she could be as much as seven seconds slower if she does and would likely lose her status as a dominant champion of the event.

She could also change her event and compete at a distance outside the limits imposed by the IAAF, a possibility that has moved closer since she won the 5,000 meters at the South African championships a week ago.

Other athletes will also be affected, among them the 2016 Olympic 800m silver medalist Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi.

I have no idea what the actual details of this case are. What I do know is that higher levels of testosterone increase muscle mass and give the athletes with those levels an advantage over athletes with lower levels. I think the IAAF made the right decision. We are already seeing male athletes who claim to be transitioning to women earning gold medals in high school sports. Whether Semenya’s testosterone levels are natural or not, they give her an unfair advantage over other female athletes with lower testosterone levels.

Natural Consequences Of Stupid Policies

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent high school girls’ track meet in Connecticut.

The article reports:

High school juniors Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood took first and second place in the state open indoor track championships Feb. 16, The Associated Press noted in a report Sunday. Both Miller and Yearwood are biological males who identify as transgender girls.

One of their competitors, high school junior Selina Soule, told the AP it was unfair to force female runners to compete against male runners.

“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing,” said Soule. “I fully support and am happy for these athletes for being true to themselves. They should have the right to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had extra rules to keep the competition fair.”

Miller is the third-faster runner in the country in the girls’ 55-meter dash. Yearwood is close behind, tied for seventh nationally.

Along with the transgender movement is the idiotic idea that there is no difference between boys and girls. As unfortunate as what is happening in high school sports because of the transgender movement, the results of the various athletic contests illustrate the fact that boys are different than girls. Any woman who has gone on a diet with her husband could have told you that–she eats salads and green things and loses two pounds–he has steak and beer and loses ten pounds. We are made differently. It has to do with muscle mass and hormones. Selina Soule is right–it is unfair to force female runners to compete against male runners.

Hopefully the women who have had to put up with competing against men claiming to be women will learn from this experience. Men and women are different and need to be reminded to rejoice in their differences. I understand that there are some people who are confused about their gender, but what is happening now is the result of making something that is the exception rather than the rule fashionable. Hopefully the young people who are caught up in this current transgender fad will come to their senses before they do something irreversible.

The End Of A New York City Tradition

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Horse-drawn carriage rides through Central Park have been associated with New York City for about 100 years. Now those carriage rides are in danger. On Thursday, CNS News reported that newly-elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to replace the horse-drawn carriages with electric cars. The cars would be built with the look of antique cars and would have a driver so that current carriage drivers would still have jobs. However, the article does not mention the horse owners and stable owners who would lose their jobs.

The Mayor claims that horse carriages are “not humane” and are cruel to the animals. The carriage owners are requesting that the Mayor take a tour of the stables where the horses are kept before he makes a decision.

This is being reported as a ‘cruelty to animals‘ issue. Since when is asking a horse to pull a carriage animal cruelty. If the concern is that the horses sometimes have to deal with vehicle traffic, it might make more sense to ban cars within Central Park and leave the entire park to the horses.

Stay tuned. I am sure there is much more to come.

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Hooray For The Average American

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On Friday Long Island Newsday posted an article about this year’s participants in the 26th annual Runner’s Edge Tobay Triathlon which will be held on August 24 at Oyster Bay, Long Island.

Triathlon coach Jose L. Lopez of Mineola, who won the first Tobay Tri in 1988, notes that the demographic of the Triathlon has changed.

The article reports:

Cases in point in this year’s race: Julian Acevedo, 26, a former diver and mountain climber; Dave Patton, 46, a martial artist and Kathy Griswold, 40, a yoga teacher.

All three are doing Tobay for the first time; each found the sport through a different route.

…Griswold was a high school shot putter and softball player back in Massachusetts. This past winter, when her gym held a mini indoor tri — participants swam in the pool, pedaled a stationary bike and ran on a treadmill — she jumped in and enjoyed it.

“I decided maybe I should do a real one.” said Griswold, a Plainview resident who teaches yoga at two local studios.

“I will finish, and I will have a blast doing it,” she said.

Hooray for amateur athletes who are willing to rise to the challenge of something new.

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