Down at Greene Family Field, the field hockey team darts around the turf, hitting shots, making passes and driving the ball towards the goal. Sweat dripping down their faces, they practice hard to refine their skills. Their coach calls for them to gather up at the end of practice, but she has bad news. Another school has canceled their game, just like last time. The reason? Other schools don’t want to play against Masters’ co-ed team.
The field hockey team only has three boys, senior Benjamin Kremnev, junior Xing Lyu and sophomore Nick Holz, not enough to form their own team. In order to stay in accordance with Title IX, which requires every sport be offered to all genders, the school hosts a co-ed team.
Kremnev expressed frustration over game cancellations. He reported that many all-girls schools do not wish to play with them because the team is co-ed. When other schools refuse to play, the team is forced to compromise.
He said, “We’ll not play the game if we don’t care about it, or it’s very far away. If we do care about it and it’s close by, we’ll play the game and the boys will be on the sideline cheering.”
However, Coach Taylor Durkin has a more positive outlook on these situations. From her point of view, these frequent cancellations are understandable and are never one sided. Durkin is empathetic to other teams canceling, and due to the team not currently being included in any field hockey league, the stakes are lower.
She said, “We’ll find the next team to play, and we’ll always have another game.”
For some female players, there are advantages to playing on the same team as boys.
Sophomore Beatrice Hopper said, “When there’s guys on the team, I think I push myself a little harder, because I want to be able to beat some of the guys in speed or maybe the position that we play.”
Despite the sports’ non-contact rules, injuries inevitably occur, especially when people are hit with the ball.
During a high school game in Massachusetts, a biologically male player shot the ball, which bounced up into the air off an opponent’s stick where it then hit another opponent’s face causing a severe facial injury.
A big debate ensued, in which some said that male athletes pose a risk to girls in field hockey. The captain of the injured teammate even wrote a letter to the MIAA asking for co-ed field hockey to end, in which she stated that male players in field hockey pose a serious risk to female players in the game. The post garnered a lot of attention, almost one million views, and drew lots of mixed reactions.
While no legal action ensued, the MIAA issued a response in which they defended their inclusion of multiple genders.
“Student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one gender from participating on teams of the opposite gender” said the MIAA in their statement.
This rule is in place due to the Massachusetts Equal Rights Amendment. Similarly, in New York’s u coming statewide ballot, an amendment is proposed to the state constitution in which it adds gender to the list of characteristics that cannot be subjected to unequal treatment.
While the role of gender in sports is gaining more attention with divided opinions, the field hockey team here will continue to play on for this fall season.
