Men and Women Playing Field Hockey Together

While reading the article in the Sports Illustrated publication I assess the topic about men being able to play field hockey with other women. Many of the people that live in the western Massachusetts area oppose allowing men to play at the woman’s level. I do agree in permitting men to play field hockey on a girl’s high school team. I think that the boys that are talked about in the article are honest to goodness field hockey players who simply have no alternative than to participate in the only field hockey location they have near the high school. The boys are not in to try and impress all the girls nor for the minute of fame, or to flaunt their masculinity against physically smaller players. This high school student seems to have a strait forward love for the game and people around him are tuning in on the fact that he is a boy on a girl’s team. Another thing is that Sherburne and Bell have been portrayed as bullies, or as the author of the article sees them as, "hulking teen-age piles of testosterone." This slander is extremely unfair to the men and no matter which side of the spectrum you are on each person have their different views of what he or she thinks is right. They have been portrayed as misusing their state's equal rights amendment and have taken the boys to court many times to only have the judge deem them the right to play field hockey with the girls. Other surrounding states have had court rule that no male can play field hockey with females.

This also makes trying to play the game for the boys more difficult and stress full in and out of school. The fact these boys wear the team skirt before a game and during should not have any more of an effect on these boys. Every person has the right to wear any type of clothing he or she wants to wear. Parents of the town seem to make the game even tougher than before because of the verbal threats and physical harm trying to be done to Sherburne and Bell. Through out the entire article the impression that boys are permanently harming field hockey with their unrestricted domination of the sport has been grossly exaggerated.