{"id":25521,"date":"2016-10-02T08:03:14","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T15:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/volleyball-team-frustrated-over-booty-shorts-complaints\/"},"modified":"2016-10-02T08:03:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T15:03:14","slug":"volleyball-team-frustrated-over-booty-shorts-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/volleyball-team-frustrated-over-booty-shorts-complaints\/","title":{"rendered":"Volleyball team frustrated over ‘booty shorts’ complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN<\/strong> \u2014 <\/strong>A frustrated Ketchikan High School volleyball team packed the Ketchikan School Board meeting on Wednesday and voiced serious complaints about their treatment at Kayhi, including the charge that a board member had made inappropriate observations about their uniforms.<\/p>\n

That board member, meanwhile, argued he was trying to protect Kayhi athletes after some girls complained the uniforms were too revealing.<\/p>\n

Tylynn Ward, one of the volleyball coaches, and team captain Kinani Halvorsen also said members of the team had gone through \u201csexual objectification\u201d by a member of the School Board who polled people about the players\u2019 uniforms, which they said led to the team being offered new, less revealing shorts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way our players are being viewed as not athletes, but as girls in booty shorts, if you will, it is not OK with me,\u201d Ward said. \u201cI feel like respect needs to be given where it\u2019s due.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halvorsen said the poll \u201cserved to bring unwanted, unnecessary and inappropriate attention to our athletes\u2019 bodies. It should never have been used as a justification to alter our uniforms.\u201d Later, she said she \u201cpersonally felt attacked and uncomfortable\u201d with the observation about volleyball uniforms.<\/p>\n

A group that went by the name Students First Parent Group didn\u2019t name the board member, but Dave Timmerman identified himself as the person they were discussing and disagreed with their interpretation of events.<\/p>\n

Timmerman said he was at a volleyball match in September 2015 when he spoke to other female varsity athletes about why they chose not to play volleyball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer was: We don\u2019t want to wear those booty shorts,\u201d Timmerman said.<\/p>\n

He said that throughout the following weekend he asked 50 people the question, \u201cWhat\u2019s your opinion on the volleyball uniforms?\u201d and everyone said the shorts were an issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody wants to say I was objectifying in a sexual manner, that\u2019s not it at all,\u201d he said during the meeting. \u201cIf anything, we\u2019re trying to protect the women, the girls that are out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timmerman apologized to Halvorsen \u201cand anybody else who took that personally.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the meeting, he told the Daily News that he thought he didn\u2019t make a mistake in asking about the uniforms.<\/p>\n

After Timmerman raised the concerns about the volleyball shorts, the district chose to buy new shorts for the entire team, according to Boyle.<\/p>\n

Schools Superintendent Robert Boyle said the players weren\u2019t asked to change their shorts, but were given the option to wear longer shorts.<\/p>\n

School Board members Misty Browne, Alma Parker and Michelle O\u2019Brien were absent.<\/p>\n

Beyond the uniforms, volleyball coaches, parents and athletes spoke about a litany of complaints, touching on slow access to Kayhi, poor medical facilities, the team\u2019s travel schedule and fundraising demands, and suggested the district go through an independent Title IX audit.<\/p>\n

Many of the complaints fell on the shoulders of Activities Director Jenn Smith, who took on the job last school year after Ed Kline.<\/p>\n

The group said they were forced to raise more funding for travel than other Ketchikan teams, especially boys\u2019 teams.<\/p>\n

On medical supplies and fundraising, School Board Member Matt Eisenhower took aim at the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, which provides a portion of the district\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want to take the opportunity to point out that there is a cost when our borough chooses not to fund our schools to the cap,\u201d Eisenhower said.<\/p>\n

But the group\u2019s complaints touched on issues beyond fundraising.<\/p>\n

They said the team was at times forced to wait behind the school for more than half an hour for the building to be unlocked so they could prepare for matches.<\/p>\n

Parents and coaches also noted that Kayhi\u2019s volleyball team is also preparing for eight-straight away matches in the coming weeks, which they say is an unfair amount of traveling.<\/p>\n

Halvorsen, a team captain, talked about having athletes who rolled their ankles early in the season and lacking the ice and tape needed to treat them.<\/p>\n

Volleyball referee Dara Otness said there was a \u201chuge disconnect\u201d between the team and the school\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

She noted a Sept. 3 match against Juneau-Douglas, in which Otness was called 15 minutes before the first match and asked to referee for the day, which ended up lasting more than 12 hours, after giving Smith the names of four potential referees more than a month earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is totally unfair to the program,\u201d said Rebecca Clark, who coaches the junior varsity team at Kayhi. \u201cDoes basketball supply their own refs? Do they pull boys off the floor or girls off the floor and say, \u2018Here\u2019s a whistle, go ref your game?\u2019 I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a phone interview after the meeting, Smith said the lack of referees was a problem for all teams locally and in Southeast.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in communication with (volleyball coach Naomi Michelson) and we did have trouble finding referees for those games,\u201d Smith told the Ketchikan Daily News. \u201cWe did the best we could and I think it came together pretty well. There is only so much you can do when you ask the community and there aren\u2019t a lot of volleyball referees in Ketchikan. We did the best we could that day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clark suggested the issues around the Sept. 3 marathon matches were Smith\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like this isn\u2019t the only incident where this is going on,\u201d Clark said. \u201c… Either the coordinator needs some help or we need a new coordinator. I don\u2019t know what else to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with the Daily News and during the board meeting, Kayhi Principal Bob Marshall defended Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little concerned too about their dragging our activities through the mud \u2014 I just want to be on the record for that,\u201d Marshall told the board. \u201cI think there\u2019s lots of things that we as public faces unfortunately get judged for without real understanding of what goes along with that particular job or that job description.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall and Boyle said they would examine the evidence offered by the group.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ketchikan Daily News sports editor Joe Sturzl contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

\u2022 This story first appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News and is reprinted here with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN \u2014 A frustrated Ketchikan High School volleyball team packed the Ketchikan School Board meeting on Wednesday and voiced serious complaints about their treatment at Kayhi, including the charge that a board member had made inappropriate observations about their uniforms. That board member, meanwhile, argued he was trying to protect Kayhi athletes after some girls […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25521"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}