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Ahhh late winter, season of thin skins and ready misunderstandings.
I agree with Katie that scheduling 2 separate leagues within us would be impractical. Last year we tried to match teams up by ability level to give them good games. I think that should continue to be our priority and a girl/no girl split would limit our ability to do that.
I also agree with Katie that it is really difficult for schools to recruit girls. Our school has a bunch right now but we haven't always. I've spent more Saturday mornings than I care to remember calling and imploring girls to participate. I've chased girls down the hall; I've physically dragged them to practice. I've given out discs, I've given out flowers. I've made my senior boys play shirtless. I've resented the WAFC rules that made me do it.
But the damn rules paid off. It's like the police and speed limits I resented in high school but probably owe my life to now. Gender requirements forced us to recruit and train girls. They've made our program better and more fun. Having them around has also made our team more appealing to guys and that has in turn made it stronger.
I don't think it's mysterious as to why it's hard to get girls out. It's tough having to learn to play against guys. I think the reason my team has been so successful is that we now (after years of struggle) have reached a critical mass. They can have a girls practice, they can cover each other, they can learn in a more supporting, less testosterone dominated environment. And that's what I was trying to do for the league.
I wasn't really talking to the other schools that already have girls, I assume they would like to play their girls. I was offering some girls to Heights, GPrep, and Landon because they don't have any. It's not like Heights is going to develop or recruit any girls if we don't help them. It's an All- Boys School
As I clearly said play time for my girls is the lowest of my priorities. Katie knows how little I care about winning games, how much my focus is on good spirit. If I were selfishly into my own team, into winning, I wouldn't have divided my team up year after year. And I wouldn't put craploads of time into organizing this league.
I've offered clinics to teach other schools. I've coached schools playing against my own team. In the past 24 hours I dealt with 29 emails for WAFC and only 8 or 9 for HB. I've bought prizes for the league with my own money. Nobody has put more time and energy into developing DC juniors than I have. So I was really surprised by the accusation that I am "furthering HB players at the sake of developing the programs at other schools", especially from someone who knows my efforts as well as Katie does.
I made a mistake in proposing it as a gender "requirement". We all bristle at laws, even ones we know we should follow. I should have just offered the help to the all-boys schools and not gotten everyone so riled up. Amongst the schools I was speaking to Heights and GPrep have expressed interest in girls Landon hasn't. We agree as a league not to force teams to recruit, train, and field girls but we encourage it. End of story.
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