A high school girls’ basketball team was banned from a sports league after the coach forfeited a game due to the inclusion of a biological male on the other team. Mid-Vermont Christian School and coach Chris Goodwin received a lifetime ban from Vermont academic officials after refusing to have his squad play a team with a male who identified as female.
Goodwin said that he has four daughters and has coached each of them during their careers. He said that he’s also coached boys’ basketball on occasion and that “boys just play at a different speed, a different force.”
“It’s a different game,” he said.
The coach said that it would be “irresponsible” to risk an injury among his players in competing against a biologically male athlete.
Mid-Vermont Christian School refused to play Long Trial during a playoff game earlier this month due to the belief that the biological male on the other team “jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.”
As a result, the Vermont Principals’ Association barred the private school from all athletic events. This was followed by a lawsuit by Mid-Vermont. The lawsuit argues that the private school was “irreparably harmed by being denied participation” and “losing out on playing competitive sports as well as academic competitions.”
On Monday, Chris Goodwin, the girls' basketball coach at Mid-Vermont Christian School, criticized the decision to exclude his team from competition after he chose to forfeit a playoff game against Long Trail School last year.
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The State is entitled to its own views, but it is not entitled, nor is it constitutional, to force private, religious schools across the state to follow that orthodoxy as a condition to participating in Vermont’s tuitioning program and the State’s athletic association,” it read.
The state academic association said that Mid-Vermont had “every right to teach its beliefs to its own students.”
However, the organization said that the private school could not “impose those beliefs on students from other public and private schools; deny students from other schools the opportunity to play; or hurt students from other schools because of who those students are.”
The Vermont Principals’ Association has now removed Mid-Vermont from its organization.
Goodwin said that the decision was made in consultation with players, parents and school leadership and that the team would not go “against our religious beliefs.”
