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Catholic youth football league bans girls on moral grounds

A pre-teen football player caught national attention in 2013 when she fought for her right to play alongside her male teammates in a Catholic Youth Organization league outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Caroline Pla had been playing co-ed football since joining a flag football team in kindergarten. Her twin sister joined the cheerleading team, but Caroline was more interested in football. Her parents didn't see any reason to hold her back.

In fifth grade, Caroline joined the CYO team with the rest of her friends. But in the middle of her second season, the archdiocese of Philadelphia informed her parents that Caroline could not play because football is considered a boys sport in the league handbook.

Caroline Pla lines up with her teammates.
Caroline Pla lines up with her teammates.

Pla created a change.org petition and enough media attention to convince the archbishop to overturn the rule, allowing her to play her last two seasons of eligibility. There was a caveat, though: the rule change was "provisional," he wrote. He could change his mind once she was done playing – and before that time even arrived, he did.

According to a letter sent to the Pla family, the bishops of Pennsylvania discussed the decision at a July 2014 meeting. They decided that Caroline would be "grandfathered" in so that she could play her last season, but after that, girls would once again be stuck on the sidelines.

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference Education Department released a statement saying the rules are written this way because,

Preparation for Christian adulthood likewise involves the development and encouragement of appropriate, dignified and respectful forms of contact between male and female students. The [Arch]Diocese therefore believes that it is incompatible with its religious mission and with its effort to teach Gospel values to condone competitions between young men and women in sports that involve substantial and potentially immodest physical contact. Consequently, the [Arch]Diocese has adopted this policy prohibiting co-ed participation in the following sports: wrestling, tackle football and tackle rugby.

The archdiocese also explained that safety is a concern. Seal Pla, Caroline's mother, says the coaches should be the ones deciding who belongs on the field.

"As they got older I noticed that they’re not going to put someone out there who isn’t capable of doing the job or getting hurt," she told Yahoo Sports. "Moving forward the boys are just going to get bigger. It’s like any sport, you get weeded out after awhile. But for CYO, from 5th-8th grade, she was bigger than a lot of the boys."

The Pla family.
The Pla family.

The decision comes at a time when girls are getting more attention for their accomplishments on the football field. Nearly 1,600 girls play high school football across the country, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

In 2014, Shelby Osborne because the first female defensive back to sign a letter of intent to play college football. Speedy Sam Gordon earned her own Wheaties box design for her accomplishments in youth football. These young women, along with Caroline Pla and hundreds of others, have proven that girls can handle their own against the boys.

Ashley Brown hired a lawyer to fight the CYO league's rule in 2004, but she was unsuccessul. Caroline was grateful to be grandfathered in, but seeing the decision reversed has inspired her to renew the campaign. Even though the decision doesn't impact Caroline – 2014 was her final season of eligibility, as she'll be in high school next year – the teen wants to ensure that girls never have to challenge the archdiocese again.

Because the league receives Title IX funding, the Pla family should have a case. Title IX holds an exemption for contact sports, allowing leagues and schools to prohibit girls from joining contact sports teams. But if they choose to overlook the rule once, they cannot reverse course at any point, according to Seal.

Seal and Caroline created another change.org petition on Jan. 8, and are hoping to convince the archdiocese of Philadelphia to change the rule for good. It has reached nearly 15,000 signatures in the first week.