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Jul 13 2008
10 Year-old Banned from Youth Football Because She’s a Girl: My Take
MyFOX Cleveland’s picture of Alycia Figueroa of Ashtabula, Ohio.
*All rights remain with MyFOX Channel 8 Cleveland and FOX News*
Scenario: Your 10 year-old daughter comes home from school and tells you she wants to play football. What do you do?
Well, according to a report out of Cleveland, Ohio, Alycia Figueroa is being told she can’t. Figueroa Mother is saying it’s ridiculous that a girl can’t play football in 2008. The league worries about her getting hurt but he mother rebuts saying, “If that’s what they’re worried about is her getting roughed up, she’ll be fine.” Some at the league suggested cheerleading, but Alycia says she’s a tomboy and she doesn’t cheer, she plays and has been playing all of her life with the boys.
Folks, as much as I’d love to say “yes” to a little girl’s right to get roughed up, I do see the other side. In virtually any other team sport I could see Alycia being fine. Baseball for instance, is a game with virtually no physical contact with room for an occasional headbutt or that whole getting hit with the ball thing. Soccer (also called football outside the U.S.) is a strategy game in which speed and finesse are key to success as opposed to force. Even basketball is based on avoiding blunt contact so that a player may maneuver closer to the to the basket in oRder to score. But with football, one of the basic defensive maneuvers is to tackle, plow, and push the other team so that it cannot move its offensive line up the field to score.
Frankly, this is one of the most dangerous sports ever created and to let a 10 year-old girl be plowed over by ten-year old males is crazy! People get paralyzed in football! I know because I had a close call with my brother who is 185+ pounds of almost all muscle. So I can only hope that a ten year-old the size of a broomstick won’t be in danger of breaking her neck. I’m all for free speech, but never at the risk of of a ten year-old little girl’s health and ability to walk, let alone play a football game. Wax over, wax out!
Did anybody even let her try out? Are there other sports being offered at the same time as the football season runs such as rugby or the like? Title IX comes to mind. If they are going to have sports available to boys they have to have sports available to girls. If this is a “school” there are laws that would outline her rights. I don’t know if Little League sports apply though.
If her parents are all right with it, and she knows what she’s getting into, I see no problem. The size differences aren’t quite that bad at her age, and she did say she’s played before in an unofficial capacity. And if they didn’t even let her try, that’s just plain bad taste; there is nothing worse than being forbidden something without even getting a chance to prove yourself. If there are no other sports to play–and even if there are other sports to play–she should be given a chance to show them what she can do and demonstrate that maybe she can handle the risk.
I agree with Ravyn. The size differences in high school make a big difference, but a ten-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy are almost the same size anyway. What’s the problem? She could be tougher than some of those boys. And she probably wants it a lot more than some of them too, which means she will be really good at it.