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Officials at a central New Jersey high school that has won three sectional titles over the past four years canceled the football season amid allegations of harassment, intimidation and bullying among players. […] … The district already had canceled and forfeited a game that was scheduled last Thursday between Sayreville War Memorial and South Brunswick, and announced that the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office was investigating the allegations. …

When hundreds of Virginia students left classrooms this week to protest Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s effort to scale back pro-transgender policies in schools, it was heralded by some media outlets as a slam-dunk sign that teenage LGBT rights have won out. But coming on the anniversary of when former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe blew his chance in the 2021 election battle with Youngkin by suggesting parents shouldn’t tell schools what to do, it reminded others that the issue is far from closed. ... In fact, Youngkin’s office sent Secrets a handful of stories about parents walking out of school board meetings...

A Los Angeles Unified School District mandate went into effect Sunday that requires students who want to play sports to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the Los Angeles Times reported. And with that, Crenshaw High School's football team — which possesses a storied history as five-time city champions — saw its season abruptly end, the paper said. Why? The mandate states that football teams need at least 18 fully vaccinated players to compete, the Times said, but Crenshaw has only 13 players who are fully vaccinated. And that's "insufficient eligible players," according to a LAUSD statement, KTTV-TV reported. The Cougars...

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — One Wisconsin school district built a new football field. In Iowa, a high school weight room is getting a renovation. Another in Kentucky is replacing two outdoor tracks — all of this funded by the billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief Congress sent to schools this year. The money is part of a $123 billion infusion intended to help schools reopen and recover from the pandemic. But with few limits on how the funding can be spent, The Associated Press found that some districts have used large portions to cover athletics projects they couldn’t...

After Wednesday’s failed House attempt to override Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of a bipartisan-backed bill designed to give local school officials the final say on holding sports and setting crowd limits, some were left scratching their heads. How could a bill that passed the House by a 155-47 fall short of the 135 votes needed to override the governor’s veto? The answer: 24 of the Democratic legislators who voted “yes” on the bill originally apparently had a change of heart. One of the bill’s original supporters, Rep Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, was absent on Wednesday. House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff,...

Gov. Tom Wolf, as promised, vetoed a bipartisan-backed bill on Monday that would have given local officials’ authority this year to decide whether to hold K-12 sports and activities and set crowd limits at events. This action shows his determination to urge Pennsylvanians to adhere to his 25-person limit for indoor events and 250 for outdoor contests to control the spread of COVID-19, even though a federal judge has declared those limits along with other pandemic-related restrictions the governor ordered as unconstitutional. The Wolf Administration has requested a stay on that order while appealing U.S. Western District Court Judge William...

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania -- Gov. Tom Wolf will go through with a veto of a bill that would give school districts the sole ability to make decisions on sports, including whether and how many spectators to allow, he said Monday. The Wolf administration's gathering limits of 25 people indoors and 250 people outdoors apply to youth sports, but legislation that cleared the state House and Senate would empower schools to make their own rules about the number of spectators permitted at games. Some families have chafed at the statewide limits, saying attendance could safely be expanded while still allowing for adequate...

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives wants to guarantee school boards that they hold the power to decide whether to allow sports and extracurricular activities to occur this school year and whether spectators can attend. The House on Wednesday passed House Bill 2787 , sponsored by Rep. Mike Reese, R-Westmoreland County, by a bipartisan 155-47 vote that would school boards with the assurance that they have that authority, not the governor. A separate school-related bill, House Bill 2788, sponsored by Rep. Jesse Topper, R-Bedford County, passed by a 197-5 vote that would allow parents to request their public or private school...

Gov. Tom Wolf made his recommendation that high school athletics be shut down until Jan. 1, 2021, but the PIAA has decided to move forward with the start of the fall season on Monday regardless. Just after the PIAA voted to advance with the season, Wolf has maintained the position that while he does not believe sports should be happening at the high school level this year, it remains a decision up to the PIAA. “The Wolf administration has been in contact with representatives from PIAA as needed throughout the pandemic. While the administration expressed broad concern with the PIAA’s...

HARRISBURG – Gov. Tom Wolf made a recommendation that students not participate in sports this fall. The PIAA is meeting Friday to discuss their options. But the parents, coaches and student athletes who gathered Thursday at the state Capitol said that decision should be left up to one group. Julie Burkart and Rachelle Gibbs, of Easton, organized today’s Let Our Kids Play rally to let that message be known. “Back when Gov. Wolf on Aug. 6 made his recommendation that fall sports be suspended until at least Jan. 1, 2021, it had a ripple effect,” Burkart said. “The PIAA put...

Homeschoolers in Wisconsin will soon be able to participate in public school sports, thanks to a new measure recently signed into law by Governor Scott Walker. Previously, homeschooled students in Wisconsin were not allowed to play on public school sports teams. But Scott Woodruff of the Home School Legal Defense Association says the new law allows them to try out for teams at public schools. “I think for many folks who were initially opposed to it, it was almost kind of a turf issue,” he says. “People thought, Okay, homeschool students might be part of our community, but they don’t...

Sep 19, 2005 10:57 am US/Eastern (1010 WINS) (PARSIPPANY, N.J.) A high school football game was postponed this weekend after a parent allegedly threatened a coach for benching his son. Parsippany police have charged 44-year-old Robert Stanel with making terroristic threats toward coach Gerry Moore. Moore benched Stanel's son for arriving five minutes late on Saturday, when the team was scheduled to visit rival West Essex. According to police, Stanel threatened to kill Moore. Stanel denied that, saying he told Moore he would -- quoting here -- ``come looking for him later.'' There was no physical contact between the men....

  Charlotte HillTribuneTribune reporter Jeremy Fowler's three-part series will explore how Albuquerque high schools are working to provide tougher checks for male coaches, how female players are being protected, and what exactly is appropriate between coaches and players. Dan Simmons will win you a basketball game. Hire him and he produces - just as he did with the Rio Grande High School girls program, which he molded from a 1-23 squad in 1991-92 to a state champion by 1998. "He was the type of coach who built rapport with his players," said Pete Pino, now Rio Grande's athletics director...

As head coach of girls' basketball at Ensley High School in Birmingham, Roderick Jackson felt that his squad had less access to the gym and training equipment than the boys' team did. He thought that might violate Title IX, the landmark 1972 federal law barring gender discrimination at federally funded educational institutions, and he told school administrators. In May 2001, he was informed that his services as coach were no longer required. Now, the question before the Supreme Court is whether that alleged retaliation makes Jackson a victim of illegal gender discrimination under Title IX, with the same right to...

...Medical experts are observing the emergence of a relatively new strain [of Staph infections], known as community-acquired MRSA, among gay and bisexual men, athletes, prisoners and Native Americans. Since a staph outbreak among gay men in Los Angeles in early 2003, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention identified five major factors that facilitate the transmission of the infection: close contact, crowding, cleanliness, contaminated items and surfaces, and compromised skin integrity, said Nicole Coffin, a CDC spokesperson. The compromised skin integrity category includes tiny abrasions that may occur during "manscaping" -- the cosmetic shaving of body parts popular with some...

A coalition led by wrestling advocates has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education charging that its enforcement of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funding, discriminates against male athletes. The National Wrestling Coaches Association ( which is financing this legal offensive) and others rightly claimed that the way the feds have administered Title IX has led schools to cut back men's athletic teams and scholarships. Rhetoric to the contrary, Washington applies a rigid formula: If 51% of a studet body is male, then 51% of the institution's athletes must be men. Equal...