No Excuses.

In instances of competition, it is better to play hard and get blown out Baltimore Orioles style than to emerge from the battlegrounds waving a white flag.

Unfortunately for sports and the people who watch them, cowards do not agree with that ideology.

Instead of having the common decency to play for the Arizona Charter Athletic Association State Championship, Our Lady of Sorrows Academy’s baseball team opted to forfeit because one opposing athlete played ball like a girl.

Well, her name is Paige Shultzbach and she is a girl. She and her teammates at Mesa Prep are also the recipients of a gift they wanted to earn rather than receive.   

Shultzbach’s team was handed a title by Our Lady of Sorrows because they refused to play an opponent with a girl on the team. When representatives from the school of cowards were asked why they quit, they hid behind the outdated belief that boys and girls should be taught separately.

It would have been one thing if Shultzbach was a pitcher who constantly threw at the heads of opposing ball players. Then Our Lady of Sorrows could have clamored for the safety of their players and Shultzbach would have been the villain.

Instead, the two times that Mesa Prep played Our Lady of Sorrows in the regular season, Shultzbach sat out both games out of respect to her opponent’s views and Mesa Prep won both meetings.

All Shultzbach wanted was to be a part of a game when her team beat Our Lady of Sorrows a third time. At the very least, a girl at the age of 15 wanted to play with her teammates for a title fairly.

            Sadly this is not the case and the actions of Our Lady of Sorrows have soiled the name of competition.

            The power of sports is supposed to be stronger than this. If Nelson Mandela and his South African Rugby team united an entire country, then a girl playing with boys in a high school game in the US should have not even have been news.

            Yet for Shultzbach, her name and her school are in the news for all the wrong reasons.

            Rather than a girl and her team going 9-0 and winning the Eastern Division, Mesa Prep has been given a championship trophy that was mistaken as Charmin Ultra by Our Lady Sorrows.

            Even though Our Lady of Sorrows asked if anyone had any girls on their teams at the beginning of the year (which Mesa Prep did not at the time), Shultzbach playing in the championship game is hardly Bill Belichick listing half his roster as doubtful and having them all play that Sunday.

            There is no good message being sent from Our Lady of Sorrows Academy. The withdrawal from the title is blatantly disrespecting Mesa Prep’s team as well as the hard work their students invested into the long months of their baseball season.

            As far as we have come as a society and as fans alike, Our Lady of Sorrows narrow mindedness proves we have a long way to go.