13-Year-Old Banned from NY Field Hockey Team for Being Too Good

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (NewsCore) -- Keeling Pilaro is one of the best field hockey players in Southampton, N.Y., and one of the best in his division -- but he is not allowed to play on his high school team because he is too good.

Keeling is all of about four feet eight inches (1.4 meters) and 82 pounds (37 kilograms), but when he picks up a field hockey stick he is a star -- or at least he was the last two years he played on Southampton High School's varsity team. That is exactly why he is not allowed to play this year.

The 13-year-old is the only boy playing on an all-girls team. After two years, Section XI -- which oversees Suffolk County's high school sports -- determined that as a boy, Keeling is such an impressive player, he is "having a significant adverse effect on some of his opposing female players ... the rules state he would be allowed to play if he wasn't the dominant player."

Keeling said he is not the best player but also not the worst. He said some girls are faster and stronger and can beat him one-on-one.

But Section XI's executive director, Ed Cinelli, told FOX's WNYW, "As a sport it's a girls sport. When a boy plays, it leads the way for other male players to come in and take over."

Keeling learned to play the sport in Ireland, where it is a men's sport too. He, his parents, and his teammates are not taking the committee's decision lightly and the Long Island boy's fight is not over yet.

He may have lost his bid and initial appeal, but he is going back again for a final time May 15. If he wins that, he will be allowed back on the field. If not, he may never play in that town again.

Read more: https://www.myfoxny.com/story/17760446/boy-too-good-to-play-on-field-hockey-team