USA Volleyball announced Friday morning that it will strip the Colorado Crossroads volleyball tournament of its status as a national qualifier, effective immediately.
The statement from the governing body of volleyball in America:
“In light of recent events and effective immediately, USA Volleyball has terminated its agreement with Colorado Crossroads Girls Junior National Qualifier. Effective 2022 and beyond, Colorado Crossroads will no longer be a qualifying event for the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship. USA Volleyball will honor all bids that have been awarded to teams who competed in the event in 2021.”
In mid-May in Denver, Crossroads denied access to nursing babies of parents and coaches, citing a tournament-imposed rule to deny access to any non-players under 16 years of age.
We had multiple stories on the situation, including this article right after the event and then in a subsequent Daily Dots.
The decision by Crossroads drew national attention and condemnation and forced USA Volleyball to put out a statement on the tournament’s second day to this effect:
“It has been brought to USA Volleyball’s attention that a club coach participating in the Colorado Crossroads tournament in Denver says she was prohibited from bringing her breastfeeding baby into the tournament. Colorado Crossroads is one qualifier event for the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship. Colorado Crossroads is not operated or controlled by USA Volleyball and its jurisdiction over the event is limited. USA Volleyball has expressed its disagreement with this decision to the tournament director and is encouraging the tournament to reverse the regulation.”
Contacted after the tournament, Crossroads director Kay Rogness said she would not comment on advice of counsel and her public relations firm, but said that a statement might be released by the tournament by the end of last week.
None came.
A follow-up request for more information via email yielded no further information.
This story will be updated next week.
Cancel Culture is alive and well…
Couldn’t USA volleyball have just told the tournament director to stop the policy? The policy was probably implemented by one or two people. Why destroy a Qualifier for eternity based on the decision of one or two people who more than likely would have reversed their position if told to do so by USA volleyball. It was a bad policy but could have been corrected for the benefit of all.
In the era of virtue signaling no punishment is too extreme for the woke crowd to show how virtuous they are. Common sense not needed any more.
Why isn’t anybody talking about the fact that USAV’s own arbitrator threatened this mom and told her if she brought her baby into the convention center there would be serious repercussions for the club?? USAV was part of the decision and now they are spinning this to come out as heroes! What a shame!
Stupid decision. Thousands suffer because someone wanted special treatment. She knew the rules. Wanted attention when she didn’t get her way. No fan of crossroads management but this is bigger than them. Pathetic.
Just say you don’t Support breastfeeding working moms.
Colorado crossroads also changed a rule after our team registered and paid the entry fee. The rule was how many players could be on the team. They reduced the number to 12, and our team has 13 players. Our team tried to get an exception and even tried to negotiate options such as reducing our coaches at the event by one to allow our 13th player to play, but similar to this reported event, the director would not budge on the new rule they just put in place. Instead of asking a player to not play in the tournament, our team decided to not compete. We were not reimbursed our team entry fee. This is another example of the same director being unreasonable, and I applaud this decision by USA volleyball.
As a breastfeeding mom myself, I am shocked to see that this woman attempted to use her baby as a bargaining chip. While I don’t agree with the rule of no spectators under the age of 16, everybody knows that this rule was published in advance and shame on her for thinking she was better than everybody else and would get special treatment. In one of the stories I read that Crossroads provided her a room at the hotel across the street – how is that not accommodating? Many of us have to pump, while sitting in dirty public bathrooms, because we have jobs that do not allow us to bring our babies to work. She was clearly looking for attention – even had the custom “contraband baby” onesie made ahead of time! I hope she’s happy that she made national news while ruining a great tournament.
I nursed my babies and, on the rare occasion I had to pump and they drank from a bottle, I did. They still received my nutritious milk and were also able to bond with dad in a similar fashion. I assume that the safest place for a baby during a volleyball game (for protection of their body & ears) — even more so during Covid-19 while people are yelling — is not the front line. Shame on that mother for not doing what is best for her baby, her work situation, and tournament participants. Very selfish of her to grandstand & it was a bad ruling by USA Volleyball who likely felt a lot of pressure from misguided women’s groups.