NAIA all but bars transgender athletes in women’s sports
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics announced a policy Monday that all but bans transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports at its 241 mostly small colleges across the country.
The NAIA Council of Presidents approved the policy in a 20-0 vote at its annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. The NAIA, which oversees some 83,000 athletes competing in more than 25 sports, is believed to be the first college sports organization to take such a step.
According to the transgender participation policy, which goes into effect in August, all athletes may participate in NAIA-sponsored male sports but only athletes whose biological sex assigned at birth is female and have not begun hormone therapy will be allowed participate in women’s sports.
A student who has begun hormone therapy may participate in activities such as workouts, practices and team activities, but not in intercollegiate competition.
NAIA programs in competitive cheer and competitive dance are open to all students. The NAIA policy notes every other sport “includes some combination of strength, speed and stamina, providing competitive advantages for male studentathletes.”
NAIA President and CEO Jim Carr said in an interview with The Associated Press he understands the policy will generate controversy.
“We know there are a lot of opinions, and a lot of people have a very emotional reaction to this, and we want to be respectful of all that,” Carr said. “But we feel like our primary responsibility is fairness in competition, so we are following that path.
And we’ve tried as best we could to allow for some participation by all.”
College basketball
South Carolina’s victory against Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Sunday’s women’s NCAA tournament championship game had a preliminary audience average of 18.7 million on ABC and ESPN. The only sporting events in the United States to draw a bigger TV audience since 2019 have been football, the World Cup and the Olympics.
• Canisius hired former Boston College coach Jim Christian to take over its men’s basketball program.
Pro basketball
Atlanta Hawks All-Star guard Trae Young, who has missed 22 games since suffering a torn ligament in his left fifth finger, is moving closer to his return to action.
• The NBA has acknowledged two officiating mistakes — one wrong call, one missed call — in the final minute of Miami’s 117-115 loss at Indiana on Sunday, a defeat that helped send the Heat into the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference going into the season’s final week.
• The NBA fined the New York Knicks $25,000 after Mitchell Robinson was listed as out on an initial injury report and then played in a game against Toronto.
Baseball
San Diego cut payroll by $96 million in the past year, the New York Mets by $50 million and the Los Angeles Angels by $49 million, among nine teams that slashed spending in a tepid free-agent market that sparked player unrest. The average salary increased 1.5% to $4.98 million on opening day, according to a study by The Associated Press. That was down from an 11.1% rise last year to $4.91 million and a 6% increase in 2022 following the end of the spring training lockout.
Soccer
Everton was docked two more points for its latest breach of the English Premier League financial rules, plunging the team back toward the relegation zone with seven games remaining. Everton had already received a six-point deduction — reduced from 10 following an appeal — for the club overspending in a three-year spell up to the end of the 202122 season.
Hockey
Kirsten Simms scored 3:38 into overtime to lift the United States to a 1-0 preliminary round win against rival Canada, and helped the Americans clinch the Group A title at the women’s world hockey championships.
Tennis
Novak Djokovic has surpassed another tennis record once held by Roger Federer, becoming the oldest man to be ranked No. 1 in the ATP Tour’s computerized rankings. Djokovic is 36 — he turns 37 next month — and is now older than Federer was on his last day atop the rankings in June 2018. Monday gives Djokovic 420 total weeks at that spot, extending another mark Federer (who was there for 310 weeks) had at one time before Djokovic broke it.
• Former tennis player Luis Horna, who is now Peru’s Davis Cup captain, has been fined $10,000 for promoting a betting operator, the sport’s integrity agency said.