UIL Says No To Boys!

[KFDM COOP]

AUSTIN — Boys playing volleyball with girls in Texas?

Not anytime soon, ruled the UIL Legislative Council on Sunday during its annual meetings.

The athletic committee shot down the notion of allowing boys to play volleyball with girls’ teams, along with a proposal that would have introduced gymnastics as a UIL sport. The committee also voted down measures to allow more athletes to reach the state championships in golf and track and field.

"Having new activities or qualifiers in the economic times that we’re in isn’t something that schools typically are interested in," UIL athletic director Charles Breithaupt said. "Sometimes less is more, and the value of going when only an elite few get to go is important."

Boys volleyball was an easy decision.

"Allowing boys to play volleyball has obvious complications. Boys are physically larger and have advantages that most of our girls don’t possess," Breithaupt said. "Volleyball was a sport that was created before girls were allowed to play football, so to allow boys to take over a sport that had been historically [reserved] for girls is not a good idea."

The meetings continue today, when the full council votes on a number of measures, including one to change the wording of the UIL constitution to correct pay discrepancies.

"We’re changing the wording to help the pay scale," Breithaupt said. "We made some significant changes in pay last year, and there were some discrepancies where they ended up getting a cut instead of a pay increase. This should fix that."

The committee also referred a proposal to lengthen the softball season by a few days to make it equal to baseball. In addition, the council will vote whether to allow golf coaches to assist players during their rounds of competition. Coaches would be allowed to walk with players from the green to the tee box. Currently they are not allowed to assist players in any way once play has started.

"It’s more of an emotional thing; sometimes a kid is upset because he made a bad club selection or a three-putt, so it’s really a calming effect," Breithaupt said. "It’s also to talk about a possible rules violation so his score is correct so he won’t be disqualified for turning in an incorrect score."

[Gabe]

Whoever came up with the proposal to allow boys in volleyball is a complete idiot. I am a huge advocate of girls sports and would have done all I could to protest this if I had known it was even a question. How stupid was even the thought of this?

[Bobcat1]

It would be one thing to have a boys team, but to mix guys with the girls team is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

[Bucof2010]

I'm human just like the girls and if I want to put my hair in pink ribbons and paint my nails purple then play volleyball then that's my birthright lol jk

[Gabe]

Whew, at first I didn't see the "jk" lol. I was really about to lose it 

[EMC]

You'd be surprised how many young men would like to play volleyball. That doesn't mean put them up against the girls teams, you could allow other schools to establish boys teams to play. The conflict is there really is no time during the year to get that going. With football coming first in the year it would hamper fielding teams. The Houston area does this in a few schools and has had success.

[football]

All it would take is one boy to sue over this issue just like when the girls sued to play football.  The precedent has been set.