Madison soccer team endures criticism because players have short hair

[GMDino]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/05/madison-girls-soccer-team-bristles-critics-who-say-players-boys/459741001/

Quote:When Mira Wilde was 8 years old, she wanted to cut her hair like one of her idols, Ellen DeGeneres. So she did.


Fast forward two years, Mira, now 10, still has short hair — though now she's mimicking a new idol, Abby Wambach, the 2015 World Cup soccer champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist.

About a year and a half ago, Stella Blau cut her hair short, too. Stella, now 11, also wanted to look like Wambach, as well as another idol, U.S. women's national team midfielder Megan Rapinoe.

Adah Lacocque, now 10, was only four when she cut hers, mostly because she didn't want to get yogurt in it or deal with the tangles. Now, it's part of her identity.

All three play soccer on a Madison girls U-11 club team, the 56ers. What has taken the girls, their parents, even their coach by surprise is the impact of that style choice.

They've been ridiculed by opposing parents, coaches, even referees, all of whom refused to accept that they were not boys. At tournaments, they have been asked to prove their gender, and were told they didn't deserve medals.

But instead of giving in and growing their hair out, the girls, with the help of their parents, coach and soccer club, are sticking with each other — and with their look. After a summer hiatus, they're preparing for a new season beginning in September.

Molly Duffy, coach of the team the last two years, remembers holding a meeting at which parents voiced concern about people commenting on their short-haired daughters. She took it with a grain of salt.

"I thought this honestly can't really happen," Duffy said. "I didn't take their warning as serious as I probably should have."

Stella Blau has a corner kick for the Madison 56ers. (Photo: Courtesy of Heather McKay)

One opposing parent went up to some of the girls and asked their names.

"My daughter responded with 'Stella' and the parent didn't believe her," said Tom Blau. "My daughter came back to my wife and just cried."

Blau said it's not uncommon for opposing coaches and parents to scold them for having boys on the team. They tell the girls the only reason they win is by cheating.

"People have said they're afraid their daughter is going to get hurt playing against boys," Blau said. "(Our girls) are just physical and are playing the sport the way it's supposed to be played. When we tell a parent on the other team that they're girls they just say, 'Yeah right.'"

Once, the team went up to receive medals at a tournament, but didn't get the congratulations that they thought they deserved. A referee told the girls they didn't deserve to get medals because they played with boys on the team. 

"They say, 'They're too good. They move like boys,'" Julie Minikel-Lacocque, Adah's mom said. "All these players have experienced the same discrimination, and I really would call it that. From teams demanding passports and accusations of cheating. It's incredibly damaging to the girls."

Madison 56ers coach, Molly Duffy, talking to her team. (Photo: Courtesy of Heather McKay)

Duffy said that before a player can be put on a roster or participate in a tournament, the parent needs to turn in a birth certificate to verify not only their age, but also their gender.

Yet at a tournament in the fall season, an opposing coach came up to Duffy and said it looked like she had boys playing for her team. Duffy provided the other coach with the playing cards of the girls, but after that incident, Duffy went to the parents and asked how they wanted her to handle the situation going forward.

Ever since then, she and the parents have made it part of their protocol to go up to parents, coaches and referees before every game to let them know that the team is made up of all girls. 

Now, if the girls hear complaints, Duffy said, they often just shrug it off. 

"For the lack of better words, my girls are bad ass," Duffy said. "They're faced with this kind of situation and they take on the attitude of: 'You know what, we got this.' They are confident in what they do."

Mira Wilde running during a Madison 56ers soccer game. (Photo: Courtesy of Heather McKay)

In June, the 56ers were touched by the story of a Nebraska girl whose youth soccer team claimed it was disqualified from a tournament because organizers thought she was a boy. The girl, Mili Hernandez, just wanted to have short hair like Wambach.

The incident caught national media attention, including Wambach's and former USWNT soccer star Mia Hamm's, who both spoke out publicly on the matter.

The 56ers sent letters to Hernandez with "be you" written all over. 

"The girls all wrote letters with underlying tones of just be you," Duffy said. "They let her know they had her back and said 'Hey, you be you. We support you from Wisconsin."

The  team took it one step further and created "Sixer Strong" T- shirts to remind everyone that "power doesn't come from a haircut, but from a passion for the game as well as the freedom to be who you are." The front of the shirts says "Try and keep up," with a reference to the Title IX ban on discrimination.

Adah Lacocque (second from left) and Stella Blau (second from right), with their parents and two older siblings, show off their Sixer Strong T-shirts. (Photo: Courtesy of Dawn Blau)

Other coaches heard about the shirts and wanted them for their teams. Eventually, about 700 were ordered across the different teams under the 56ers umbrella.

"I hope at the very least it makes people pause and think, 'Hmm, maybe I should reflect on my bias views. Maybe I should think about what I just said or what I just did,'" Minikel-Lacocque said. "'Or even better, 'Maybe I should pause and not even go over there and say something.'"

It continues to amaze me that grown men and women can't accept a girl with short hair in 2016.  They are girls playing soccer against other girls.  

They aren't going out for the boy's team, they aren't taking hormones...they have a haircut conducive to their sport of choice and based on an adult who plays at the world level.

What more do these biased fools want?  Oh yeah...they want the girls to "look like girls" and not play so "rough".

Sad.

[Au165]

As a high school coach, I hate youth sports with a passion. It brings out the worst in adults.

[Benton]

Having spent the last year and a half on the sidelines of competitive youth soccer, this does't surprise me at all. Not about the gender, just about crappy people as parents.

You want to see some stressed out, overly involved adults yelling at children (normally telling them something completely wrong), go to a soccer game.

One girl in our club is unusually tall for her age. She looks like a 6-foot tall teenager, but she's only 11. Every team that plays hers heckles the kid or complains to the ref that they brought a high schooler. She takes it pretty hard sometimes when a 40 year old guy is telling her she should be ashamed for playing little kids.

[Au165]

(08-07-2017, 10:59 AM)Benton Wrote: Having spent the last year and a half on the sidelines of competitive youth soccer, this does't surprise me at all. Not about the gender, just about crappy people as parents.

You want to see some stressed out, overly involved adults yelling at children (normally telling them something completely wrong), go to a soccer game.

One girl in our club is unusually tall for her age. She looks like a 6-foot tall teenager, but she's only 11. Every team that plays hers heckles the kid or complains to the ref that they brought a high schooler. She takes it pretty hard sometimes when a 40 year old guy is telling her she should be ashamed for playing little kids.

Yep, this is really the takeaway from this article. Some of the worst displays of humanity I have ever witnessed have been at youth sport contests.

[Vlad]

(08-07-2017, 10:32 AM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/05/madison-girls-soccer-team-bristles-critics-who-say-players-boys/459741001/



It continues to amaze me that grown men and women can't accept a girl with short hair in 2016.  


Sad.

Even now in 2017.

So so sad, its borderline oppressive.

[GMDino]

(08-07-2017, 10:57 AM)Au165 Wrote: As a high school coach, I hate youth sports with a passion. It brings out the worst in adults.

(08-07-2017, 10:59 AM)Benton Wrote: Having spent the last year and a half on the sidelines of competitive youth soccer, this does't surprise me at all. Not about the gender, just about crappy people as parents.

You want to see some stressed out, overly involved adults yelling at children (normally telling them something completely wrong), go to a soccer game.

One girl in our club is unusually tall for her age. She looks like a 6-foot tall teenager, but she's only 11. Every team that plays hers heckles the kid or complains to the ref that they brought a high schooler. She takes it pretty hard sometimes when a 40 year old guy is telling her she should be ashamed for playing little kids.

Oh, no doubt!

When our daughter played soccer I was totally relieved that she decided to quit before going up to the next level.  Parents are awful in general when it comes to sports.  Not all of them, but enough of them!

But this thing with worrying about girls versus boys based on a haircut just reeks of 50's and 60's mentality to me.  I wouldn't be surprised to see an article about "colored" kids next. 

[GMDino]

(08-07-2017, 11:25 AM)Vlad Wrote: Even now in 2017.

So so sad, its borderline oppressive.

Ha!  I forgot the year!  That should tell you what kind of day this has been already! 

[Au165]

(08-07-2017, 11:26 AM)GMDino Wrote: Oh, no doubt!

When our daughter played soccer I was totally relieved that she decided to quit before going up to the next level.  Parents are awful in general when it comes to sports.  Not all of them, but enough of them!

But this thing with worrying about girls versus boys based on a haircut just reeks of 50's and 60's mentality to me.  I wouldn't be surprised to see an article about "colored" kids next. 

I have seen parents physically assault high school kids refing youth sports. This is just a different version of youth sport parents being an idiot. The topic of their stupidity changes, but the underlying issue is universal.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I remember when my two oldest played soccer and watching other parents lose their minds. There was more than a few times a parent or parents would threaten the refs, coaches, other parents and their own child with violence. "I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE PARKING LOT AFTER THE GAME!" yelled parents at that 15 year old ref, "We are going to TALK about this." It was disgusting.

Soccer is a too violent spectator sport, it brings out the worse in people for some reason.

[GMDino]

(08-07-2017, 11:39 AM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: I remember when my two oldest played soccer and watching other parents lose their minds. There was more than a few times a parent or parents would threaten the refs, coaches, other parents and their own child with violence. "I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE PARKING LOT AFTER THE GAME!" yelled parents at that 15 year old ref, "We are going to TALK about this." It was disgusting.

Soccer is a too violent spectator sport, it brings out the worse in people for some reason.

My daughter's league was reffed by the kids in the next level up.  So 12-14 year old kids were calling the games for 8-12 year old kids.

Unfortunately the older kids understood the game...but not so much the rules.

One time...just once...I talked when I should not have.

A kid from the opposing team LITERALLY ran over our goalie.  Knocked her straight to the ground.  Then they scored and I said to my wife sitting next to me "If they are going to let these younger kids call the games they should teach them the rules of the game."  

(This was after a few games of missed offsides and other small calls that it is good to teach the younger players.  I get they aren't going to call everything all the time, but if you go a whole game and never call an offsides the kids never learn what they are doing wrong as players.)

Anyway that one time one of the uppity ups from the league was behind me and said loud enough for me to hear but not directly to me "If people want to complain are the kids can volunteer to do the job."

So I shut my mouth and realized I shouldn't say anything...until the next day when I realized I *should* have said something:  I wasn't complaining so much about the kids or the volunteers but rather about the ADULTS who only cared about the upper/competitive leagues.  they already were working with the younger kids they thought they could use at the next level.  The rest were just objects for them to run around.

Don't miss that at all.

[Au165]

(08-07-2017, 11:39 AM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: I remember when my two oldest played soccer and watching other parents lose their minds. There was more than a few times a parent or parents would threaten the refs, coaches, other parents and their own child with violence. "I'LL BE WAITING FOR YOU IN THE PARKING LOT AFTER THE GAME!" yelled parents at that 15 year old ref, "We are going to TALK about this." It was disgusting.

Soccer is a too violent spectator sport, it brings out the worse in people for some reason.

I walked out of the school once after a workout in the off season as a baseball game was ending. Two umpires were walking through the parking lot after the game and a parent from our school started accosting them. I walked over between them and told the gentleman he was making an ass out of himself and his school, and to walk away. He proceeded to ask who the hell I was and to mind my own business. I explained I was actually a coach for the school, albeit a different sport, but if he wanted to ever be allowed back on school grounds he needed to leave now. In another act of parent stupidity, I once had a parent shove me after forfeiting a match where his kid obviously had a concussion. To make things better he is a freaking cop and should know better.

I am in my 8th year as a head coach at a high school, and to be frank this will be my last. I love coaching, but I hate the parents and the red tape that comes with it now.

[Benton]

(08-07-2017, 11:37 AM)Au165 Wrote: I have seen parents physically assault high school kids refing youth sports. This is just a different version of youth sport parents being an idiot. The topic of their stupidity changes, but the underlying issue is universal.

(08-07-2017, 12:25 PM)Au165 Wrote: I walked out of the school once after a workout in the off season as a baseball game was ending. Two umpires were walking through the parking lot after the game and a parent from our school started accosting them. I walked over between them and told the gentleman he was making an ass out of himself and his school, and to walk away. He proceeded to ask who the hell I was and to mind my own business. I explained I was actually a coach for the school, albeit a different sport, but if he wanted to ever be allowed back on school grounds he needed to leave now. In another act of parent stupidity, I once had a parent shove me after forfeiting a match where his kid obviously had a concussion. To make things better he is a freaking cop and should know better.

I am in my 8th year as a head coach at a high school, and to be frank this will be my last. I love coaching, but I hate the parents and the red tape that comes with it now.

I've tried telling parents not to talk to the officials, but they think they've got to confront them.

We've had an issue with one parent harassing other teams from time to time. Well, we were at a tournament last year where the a couple officials made comments along the lines of "we've heard about you guys" before making some really crappy calls. So a couple parents got together because they thought really needed to point out the injustices of bad calls during a youth soccer game, and they let the head official know what they thought. I don't think we had another call go our way the entire tournament. It was laughably bad... but it also was preventable (probably) if the parents had just shut up.

On the flip side, officials can be pretty crappy too. Case in point, the girl I mentioned earlier is scared to touch another player for fear of getting a card. She had a side ref tell her once "If you touch any of these little kids you won't play the rest of the game."

In 17(off and on) years reporting sports, I've seen several coaches get out of it because they just can't deal with the parents. It's a shame.

[Vlad]

(08-07-2017, 10:32 AM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/05/madison-girls-soccer-team-bristles-critics-who-say-players-boys/459741001/



It continues to amaze me that grown men and women can't accept a girl with short hair in 2016.  They are girls playing soccer against other girls.  

Here we go again, an article written twisted in order to produce another class of victims. 

You're being subjective. There is not one line in this article that states grown men and women can't accept girls with short hair.

This is obviously a very good girls team...A girls team so good that their short hair styles makes opposing parents and coaches to question their gender....that is the way this piece should be presented.
Boys and girls at that age have similar anatomies.

So which line states that in 2017 people don't accept girls having short hair?

"They say, 'They're too good. They move like boys..."

.... a Nebraska girl whose youth soccer team claimed it was disqualified from a tournament because organizers thought she was a boy.

an opposing coach came up to Duffy and said it looked like she had boys playing for her team.

"People have said they're afraid their daughter is going to get hurt playing against boys,"

[GMDino]

(08-07-2017, 01:03 PM)Vlad Wrote: Here we go again, an article written twisted in order to produce another class of victims. 

You're being subjective. There is not one line in this article that states grown men and women can't accept girls with short hair.

This is obviously a very good girls team...A girls team so good that their short hair styles makes opposing parents and coaches to question their gender....that is the way this piece should be presented.
Boys and girls at that age have similar anatomies.

So which line states that in 2017 people don't accept girls having short hair?

"They say, 'They're too good. They move like boys..."

.... a Nebraska girl whose youth soccer team claimed it was disqualified from a tournament because organizers thought she was a boy.

an opposing coach came up to Duffy and said it looked like she had boys playing for her team.

"People have said they're afraid their daughter is going to get hurt playing against boys,"

Quote:Molly Duffy, coach of the team the last two years, remembers holding a meeting at which parents voiced concern about people commenting on their short-haired daughters. She took it with a grain of salt.


"I thought this honestly can't really happen," Duffy said. "I didn't take their warning as serious as I probably should have."

Quote:In June, the 56ers were touched by the story of a Nebraska girl whose youth soccer team claimed it was disqualified from a tournament because organizers thought she was a boy. The girl, Mili Hernandez, just wanted to have short hair like Wambach.


The incident caught national media attention, including Wambach's and former USWNT soccer star Mia Hamm's, who both spoke out publicly on the matter.

The 56ers sent letters to Hernandez with "be you" written all over. 

The entire article was about how opposing parents thought they were boys because of their hair.

[*michaelsean*]

(08-07-2017, 01:48 PM)GMDino Wrote:




The entire article was about how opposing parents thought they were boys because of their hair.

I don't think the part about thinking they were boys because of their haircut is unreasonable.  How you handle it is a different matter.

[GMDino]

(08-07-2017, 02:01 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I don't think the part about thinking they were boys because of their haircut is unreasonable.  How you handle it is a different matter.

See I do find it unreasonable, but more because I hate sports parents who act like that in general and this gives me new fuel to hate them with.  

[Millhouse]

To go with theme here, I go to a ton of nieces and nephew's soccer & basketball games. And more often than not, especially at my nephew's who is now 13, the most mature people there are the refs and the players. Way too many parents just acting like their little precious got the wrong call, or getting to roughed up, or coach isnt playing them right. Or in this case, the other team has girls with short hair.

But the worst is the abuse the refs can take sometime. Sometimes it is called for, I will admit I have seen some bad refs out there. Most times though the ref simply didnt see it or it was too tight of a call to make.

It's pretty crazy when you think about it. How immature parents can be. And the worst of it is you know the parents that do this a lot is probably passing on how they act to their kids by example.

[*Nately120*]

If you spend 10 minutes enduring the parents at a youth sporting event you'll realize why the rest of the world wants to blow us up.

[*PhilHos*]

Just out of curiosity, which would you consider to be a worse offense:
Thinking that a girl with short-hair is a boy and getting upset to the point of calling them out?
OR
Having your son pretend he is a girl and having them join a girl's sports team?

[GMDino]

(08-10-2017, 11:14 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Just out of curiosity, which would you consider to be a worse offense:
Thinking that a girl with short-hair is a boy and getting upset to the point of calling them out?
OR
Having your son pretend he is a girl and having them join a girl's sports team?

It would be worse to force your child to pretend they are the opposite sex just to play a game.

It is still awful that adults care so much about a game that they "call out" girls with short hair because they are afraid they are being "cheated".