Thirteen-year-old Keeling Pilaro will be allowed to play on Southampton High School's field hockey team at least one more season, an athletics committee decided on Tuesday.
"I was jumping up and down; I was so excited when I heard," Pilaro said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I can play!"
During a closed-doors meeting on Tuesday, two dozen officials ultimately determined that Pilaro's exceptional skill did not have detrimental effect on female players, as Section 11, the body that oversees high school sports in Suffolk County, had claimed in its original decision to ban Pilaro from the team. Officials compared Pilaro's achievements with those of female field hockey players, determining that his skills and achievements did not exceed those of his peers nor give his team an unfair advantage.
