My soccer coaching husband doesn't like to hear it, but I've always thought of soccer as the gentler sport, the safe sport. Sure, our kid may take a header or two, but compared to football, it's relatively contact-free. Or so I thought. Then a teacher in my district told me about the fistfight on the girls' soccer field last week.
Suddenly, football for my girl is looking pretty darn good. At least she'd have a helmet if some girl tried to punch her right in the face, right?
Fans on the sidelines of last week's Sullivan West High School girls' soccer game say a teenager named Maggie Borowicz from opposing team James I. O'Neill had been tangling with Sullivan West's Kaitlyn Taylor over the ball throughout the game. Eventually, they say, Borowicz threw out a punch that broke Taylor's cheekbone and sent her to the hospital. The O'Neill player now faces charges for alleged assault.
Over a high school girls' soccer game? Truth be told, when I first heard "fistfight at the girls' game," I was thinking, "Oh those unruly parents." When I heard it was actually two teenage girls, I jumped to the (admittedly sexist) "really? girls?" reaction.
A few years back, there was a rush to claim teen girls were getting more violent, but it was put into perspective by some hard statistics. Boys fight kids at school; girls end up fighting with someone at home. By that standard, a soccer game is supposed to be pretty safe for our daughters.
Now there's this fight to think about. And the devastating effects (a broken cheekbone and criminal charges). And maybe it's just the proximity to home. Maybe it's the fact that my kid plays soccer. Or maybe I'm just shocked by violence over something that's supposed to be such a positive force in kids' lives.
But I know I won't be crowing about how much better it is for girls to play soccer over football anymore. How about you?
Image via chefranden/Flickr