Senior flag football player Rosemary Heckard found her community through the girls’ flag football team and felt it was the perfect fit for her. 

She was also heavily impacted by girls’ wrestling, which has improved Heckard’s high school experience greatly. 

But, there are some sports that she wasn’t able to play. One being tackle football, a boys only sport. 

  At Prospect, there are a variety of different sports offered for every student. Whether it’s a popular and full-participation sport like boys’ tackle football, or a smaller populated sport like girls’ wrestling, these sports are all aligned with a certain gender.

 At Prospect, there is a girls’ flag football team, but not one for boys, and a girls bowling team, but not for boys. Athletics have been this way for a long time — even in the Olympics, flag football, rhythmic gymnastics, and artistic swimming has only been offered for women. Ski jumping and cross-country skiing is only for men in the Olympics.

Studies show there are many reasons why this is: Popularity and participation. 

Some sports are not offered because a school or program doesn’t have enough players to create a team. An example of this is when the IHSA had a request for a boys’ badminton team from a District 214 school that only had girls’ badminton. The IHSA had to decline, though, because there weren’t enough boys who wanted to play and not enough other schools had a boys badminton team. 

The IHSA’s rule book states on page 118 that “a girl cannot join a boys team unless the only team in the sport offered at the school is a boys team, the girl has participated on that particular boys team during the regular season, or the member has a ‘letter of verification’ from the Illinois State Board of Education indicating that the school is in compliance with the Illinois Sex Equity Rules.” 

Football coach Tim Beisher says that having a boys’ flag football team at Prospect might draw more people to participate there and not as many people in tackle football. 

Another big part of sports at Prospect is tradition. Almost all high schools have a football team. It can be what represents that school and how they are seen as a whole. 

For Prospect, if they added a flag football team for boys, it might hurt participation of tackle football which could also hurt the team and school’s reputation. 

Another large factor would be the health aspect of sport separation. 

“Even where the government has plausible reasons for segregating sports by gender, those reasons may not be sufficient to survive intermediate scrutiny when the health consequences of segregation are taken into account,” said IHSA Executive Director Craig Anderson. 

It’s apparent that men and women have different bodies, which is a large contribution to the sports  teams here at Prospect. 

According to Pubmed.com, women’s bodies tend to be more fragile during the process of puberty, which can cause them to not have all of the physical abilities as men.

“I also think concerns about safety are a reason why girls shouldn’t play tackle football,” Heckard said. “Boys who are exposed to it starting when they’re young, are more inclined to it, I think.” Heckard said. 

She thinks Prospect should offer a tackle football team for girls, as well as boys. For girls who are younger, they don’t get to use those skills for high school. They are in co-ed tackle until middle school, when the genders split up, but tackle football is still offered for both genders. 

When girls get to high school, they can’t continue to tackle football since it isn’t offered and they have to resort to flag football. Unlike boys, they aren’t allowed to still play tackle football. 

Sports have and will likely continue being segregated by gender moving forward. The physiological difference in men and women’s bodies can impact athletic abilities. 

“Even if girls are allowed to be on a boys team, it’s different,” Heckard said.

When it comes to creating change, there are many possible solutions such as creating clubs ,either in school or out of school, with a small number of students that aren’t eligible for a league. There are also teams that aren’t affiliated with school that can be an alternative. The most important thing is that every student finds what they want to do while feeling included.

• Never miss important news: every Monday, get a preview of what’s going on this week at Prospect, and what went down last week. To sign up for the Knight Notes newsletter, click here.

Never miss important news: every Monday, get a preview of what’s going on this week at Prospect, and what went down last week. To sign up for the Knight Notes newsletter, click here.