Let's hear it for the boy! 13-year-old Long Islander Keeling Pilaro can keep playing on the girls' varsity team at Southampton High School. That was the ruling of an athletics committee, which reversed an earlier ruling that kicked him off the team. "I was jumping up and down; I was so excited when I heard," he said in a telephone interview. "I can play!" FOX Sports adds:
In order to play with the girls after moving to New York from Ireland, Keeling had to get permission from Suffolk's mixed-competition committee, which screens players who want to compete on teams of the opposite sex. There have been several occasions where girls have been approved to play football, wrestle or compete in other traditional boys sports, but Keeling is believed to be the first boy to play alongside girls on Long Island.
Kevin Seaman, the attorney for the committee that oversees public school athletics in Suffolk County said the vote to allow Keeling to play was not unanimous but that they did determine Keeling's play did not amount to "'a significant adverse effect' on girls' opportunity to participate in interschool competition."
