Excessive faculties in Cherokee County, North Carolina, have canceled volleyball matches towards one faculty after a transgender athlete (a boy residing as a lady) injured one other woman at a latest sport.
The harm occurred final month when a Highlands Excessive volleyball participant made a spike and smashed a Hiwassee Dam Excessive participant within the brow, inflicting extreme head accidents.
“The Hiwassee Dam participant, a organic woman, suffered extreme head and neck accidents, leading to long-term concussion signs, together with imaginative and prescient issues. The woman has nonetheless not but been cleared to play once more by her major care doctor or a neurologist,” reported Schooling First Alliance.
The Cherokee County Board of Schooling then voted 5-1 to declare a “security situation” and canceled all video games towards Highlands Excessive after coach and Cherokee Board Member Joe Wooden mentioned he had “by no means seen a success like this earlier than.
“I’ll by no means put a toddler ready to be critically injured,” Wooden mentioned. “I believe the chances (of harm) in these non-contact sports activities aren’t excessive. However particularly, on this assembly, a coach of 40 years mentioned they’d by no means seen a success like this. That was actually what sealed the choice, at the least on my half.”
Cherokee Vice Chair Jeff Martin mentioned that the “board wasn’t looking for this type of factor” and that it had been dropped at their consideration primarily based on “security considerations.”
Board member Jeff Tatham mentioned the video of the harm additionally swayed the choice.
“The largest factor for us, particularly after seeing the video of the harm, we felt very strongly that it was a security concern,” Tatham mentioned. “I believe many of the board members additionally felt like there’s a aggressive benefit situation.
Cherokee County Faculty Board member Arnold Mathews instructed reporters that the choice won’t have an effect on different athletics within the faculty district.
“We reached out to the North Carolina Excessive Faculty Athletic Affiliation, who says, ‘It’s the understanding of the NCHSAA {that a} native faculty system governs its athletic packages and at any time can decide for no matter motive {that a} faculty or workforce can not play one other faculty or workforce,’” mentioned Matthews.
