Youth Basketball Team Disqualified from Tournament for Including Girl on Roster

The U-11 Charlottesville Cavs boys basketball team out of Virginia was disqualified from the Elite Eight of the National Travel Basketball Association’s tournament in Myrtle Beach, Florida, for having a girl on the roster, according to ScrimmagePlay.com (h/t USA Today's Cam Smith).   

The twist in the story, however, is that the Charlottesville Cavs took all of the necessary steps to register the female player on the team, fifth-grader Kymora Johnson, and that tournament officials told coaches that the team would be allowed to have one girl on the squad. Not only that, but Johnson has been allowed to play in the tournament the previous two years.           

“We submit all of the paperwork, the whole team checks in in full uniform, with a birth certificate,” Jessica Thomas-Johnson, Kymora's mother, told ScrimmagePlay.com. “She has hot pink fingernail polish and a pink headband. She’s a girl.”

Tournament officials maintained that the rules had changed this year, however, and a tournament official told Thomas-Johnson that another team from Florida had already been disqualified for having a girl on the roster. 

“I felt kind of bummed that we got disqualified,” Johnson told ScrimmagePlay.com. “We were really close to getting to the championship. I just felt bad for my teammates who couldn’t play and worked really hard to get to the championship.”

Johnson's mother said they requested the rest of the team be allowed to continue playing, but the team remains disqualified. 

What remains unclear is why the officials waited until the later rounds of the tournament to disqualify Charlottesville. The timing of that decision, after Charlottesville had paid the registration fees and began participating, is sure to raise eyebrows. So too is having a rule in place that either limits the participation of female players or doesn't allow them to participate altogether.