Boy field hockey star deemed 'too good' can play, committee rules

Article here. Excerpt:

'The biggest goal of Keeling Pilaro's field hockey career happened far from an athletic field on Tuesday.

An athletics committee determined the 13-year-old boy can keep playing on the girls' varsity team at Southampton High School, at least for one more season. The decision at an appeals hearing Tuesday reverses earlier rulings that claimed Keeling's skills as a field hockey player, which he developed growing up in Dublin, Ireland, had developed to a level superior to those of girls.

"I was jumping up and down; I was so excited when I heard," the youngster said in a telephone interview about an hour after the decision was announced by an attorney for the athletics committee. "I can play!"

Kevin Seaman, the attorney for the committee that oversees public school athletics in Suffolk County, said panelists determined that Keeling's continued participation on the team ultimately would not have "a significant adverse effect" on girls' opportunity to participate in interschool competition. That was the same criteria used earlier this year when officials for the committee said Keeling's skills had exceeded those of his female teammates and competitors.'