NevadaPrep

Despite the efforts of the NIAA to unify the 4A Girl’s Soccer championship, it will remain a split state title with the Northern 4A teams playing their “title” game in 2008 and the Southern 4A contesting their “title” game in the Winter of 2009.

On Wednesday morning, in a special session, the NIAA settled, out of court, their on-going riff with Eric Johnson, and his claim that moving the 4A Girl’s soccer to the Fall to have a true state championship is in violation of Title IX. The NIAA agreed to continue with the current, split, format for one more season, while the Title IX issue is further investigated.

Johnson is an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and father of a sophomore at Green Valley High in Henderson. His daughter played volleyball and soccer as a freshman and claims it isn’t fair that she would have to chose between the two sports if soccer is moved. His loop-hole is that if soccer is moved then there will be three sports offered in the winter for the boys and only two for the girls. Thus the Title IX violation.

In a quote as reported by the Las Vegas Sun, Johnson said, “The association has agreed to assist the district in creating a new sport. That is what we always wanted to come out of this situation in the first place.” Are you kidding me? So if the new sport is created and the daughter doesn’t like it and still wants to play both soccer and volleyball, is he going to drop the issue? Not likely, but at least he won’t have Title IX to throw in the NIAA’s face.

So, basically, one man has halted an opportunity for girl’s soccer to be contested like every other sport in the state. Why should soccer be different? Because a man with some stature as a US Attorney claims it’s not fair for his little girl? What about the rest of the young women in this state who want the right to compete for a true state title? I can only imagine what kind of a cat-fight this could turn in to if a few more parents get involved, filing suits, clogging up the courts because they want their children to have the right to play for a true championship. In fact, I’m quite surprised in today’s litigious society there hasn’t been just that scenario.

Maybe the real issue is the girl doesn’t like basketball and isn’t fashionable in green and red bowling shoes, so she wants (demands) Daddy attorney to take on the big, mean NIAA picking on her by not letting her play both sports she wants to play? Maybe the issue, as I see it, is there has got to be many more pressing things this US Attorney could be spending his efforts on than fighting with an organization that tries, though not always successfully, to do what they think is best for the high schools as a whole. No, they don’t always get it right, but this time, their vote to move soccer is the right thing to do, despite the threat of a Title IX violation. Has anyone bothered to ask the other schools, coaches, or more importantly the girls playing the game, whether or not they want to play for a true state title? I doubt that has been approached because of the fear that an overwhelming majority of the people it really affects, the student-athletes, would want the chance to play the Northern schools and claim a real title.

Granted Mr. Johnson is looking out for his daughter, but is causing a lot of unnecessary banter and wasted time on a simple issue. In the smaller communities, where there isn’t a pool of 2,000 kids to fill the teams from, the kids play what’s available or they don’t play. They don’t whine because everything isn’t equal. When was the last time a small school in Nevada filed a suit against the NIAA for anything?

In the small communities, there are girls who play football and girls who wrestle. Though I don’t think I’d allow my daughters to do either — then again I don’t really want them playing soccer — that opportunity is available to them. The NIAA makes provisions for those situations. The same provisions that are available to anyone in the state. The same kind of thing they are trying to do now, by combining the split titles; doing what’s best for the whole.

Eddie Bonine, the NIAA Director issued this statement following the decision: “As Executive Director and past NIAA board member, I am very disappointed that today (Sept. 10) we have taken a step backwards and not fulfilled the expectation we established some three-plus years ago to unify the Nevada State 4A Girl’s Soccer Championship. No doubt my disappointment cannot equal that of those student-athletes who are now seniors and who actually believed three years ago that when they became seniors, they would be playing for a true statewide championship. As leaders, I feel we have failed these senior athletes.

“I want to extend my apology to all of the 4A girl’s soccer player that have lost this opportunity to participate in a Southern Nevada-Northern Nevada state tournament format.

This is not a dead issue. I will continue to work diligently with the interested parties to ensure that girl’s soccer will indeed have equality, as was the intention of this association and the NIAA Board when we rendered our 2005 decision to unify in the fall season.”

At a time when Green Valley High is dealing with real, life altering issues with the recent, unfortunate injury to LaQuan Phillips, one man’s plight to keep the state divided is pretty petty in the big scheme of things.