Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Keeling Pilaro (photo: Gordon M. Grant, AP/Newsday)
At 4 feet, 8 inches tall and 82 pounds, Keeling Pilaro is by no means the biggest player on Southampton High School’s field hockey team. But the Long Island, New York, 13-year-old is the only boy on the all-girls squad, and quite good. Too good, apparently.
Athletic league officials told Pilaro recently that he was having an “adverse effect” on the sport and would not be eligible to play field hockey next season. Pilaro’s supporters contend by “adverse effect,” the league meant the boy was too talented.
His father, Andrew Pilaro, told the local media his son “feels like he’s being punished for getting better.”
Growing up in Ireland, Pilaro played with boys, but no boys’ teams exist in his region in the United States.
He was his Southampton High School’s top scorer this season, while playing against girls several years older than him. He earned all-conference honors after scoring ten goals and eight assists.
The Pilaro family has hired an attorney, Frank Scagluso, who says he is confident the boy will be reinstated to play once the courts realize his client is being discriminated against for being male.
Although men’s field hockey is almost unheard of in the U.S., it is considered normal in other parts of the world. and has been part of the Olympic program since 1908. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the medals were won by Germany, Spain and Australia.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Boy Field Hockey Star Kicked Off Girls' Team for Being 'Too Good' (by Edmund DeMarche, FOX News)
NY Boy Wants to Stay on Girls Field Hockey Squad (by Frank Eltman, Associated Press)
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