Changing course: Move made due to threat of lawsuit for sexual discrimination against females

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Aug. 15, 2014

Changing course

Move made due to threat of lawsuit for sexual discrimination against females

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

Most area cross-country coaches are fine with girls races increasing from 4,000 to 5,000 meters this year.

The issue was how the rule was put into place and why.

In May, the WIAA announced it was going to extend the distance of girls cross-country races from 4K to 5K, but only because of a threat of a lawsuit claiming sexual discrimination.

“I’m opposed to the change but I’m prepared,” West Bend West girls cross-country coach Boyd Janto said. “I’m more disappointed with how it went down rather than the change.”

With practice set to start Monday, curiosity of how the sport will change is growing.

“I’ve had kind of mixed feelings for it; (the coaches association’s) has been discussing it for six years,” Slinger coach Terry Krall said. “One thing I objected to was how it was done. There was no basis for the complaint. The WIAA caved without looking into it.”

The WIAA’s Medical Advisory Committee met May 2 and announced it had no reason to oppose 5K for girls and supported the increase from 4K to 5K, according to a letter sent by WIAA Executive Director Dave Anderson to the WIAA membership in May.

The change was made at the WIAA Board of Control meeting May 16.

Typically, a rule change has to go through a process, often starting with the state coaches association for the respect sport, then to an advisory committee, then to the Board of Control and finally to the membership at the annual meeting every April.

This was different.

The WIAA received an inquiry from the Office of Civil Rights based on a complaint to the OCR, which alleged sexual discrimination in girls cross-country.

According to the complaint filed in February by an unnamed party, it read, “For years now there has been a plea by various groups to correct this injustice. ... These young ladies deserve the right to compete at the distance they choose, not what is convenient for meet management.”

The complaint also said, “These ladies feel that they are being discriminated against because they are not as fast as their male teammates and are therefore a ’weaker’ sex. Please help us correct this “ignorant’ attitude and put these ladies on an equal playing field with their male counterparts.”

Krall said it was one person who filed the complaint, but the name was kept private.

Area coaches and athletic directors said they were surprised of the accusation of the complaint.

“I had never heard any complaints of it,” Kewaskum Athletic Director Jason Piittmann said.

“I’ve never had a girl come to me and say they felt inadequate or feel they’re being discriminated against,” Janto said.

Wisconsin became the 42nd state to make the change. The most recent before Wisconsin was Nebraska, making the change in 2013.

Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas don’t have equal running distances for girls and boys. Minnesota has a group of people who have set up a Facebook page called “Let ’Em Run 3.1” or 5 kilometers.

“I will embrace the change,” Janto said. “I’m not adamantly opposed.”

Germantown girls coach Nancy Pietrowiak echoed a similar sentiment.

“I’m not totally for it,” she said. “I know the girls can run it. But I don’t see a reason why.”

Around the country, there is variety.

In Oklahoma, girls run 3.2 kilometers or 1.99 miles. In Texas, race lengths differ based on classification. Schools in the state’s largest classes — 5A and 4A — run a 5K, while schools in 3A, 2A and 1A run 4K courses. In 2002, Iowa upped its distance for girls races from 3.2 kilometers to 4.

And in Oregon, California, Florida, Michigan and Arizona, states considered to be hotbeds, the girls run distances close to 6 kilometers.

Krall said it’s going to be a challenge this season in getting the girls ready for the change.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge,” he said. “Fitness will be more of a premium and it’ll be rewarded. ... Maybe it’ll be a good thing.”

A concern over the change was whether it would scare off runners. Krall said at bigger programs, like Slinger and West, it likely won’t be an issue.

However, at smaller programs, such as Kewaskum, Kettle Moraine Lutheran and Living Word Lutheran, there was concern.

“I’m hoping the change doesn’t scare them off,” KML Athletic Director Len Collyard said.

Another concern is where does the sexual discrimination claim end?

Track and field, golf and basketball are just some sports with noticeable differences between the boys and girls.

In track and field, the boys run a 110-meter hurdle event, while the girls do 100. In another hurdle event, the boys 300 hurdles is intermediate, while the girls is low. In addition, the shot put and the discus are lighter for girls than boys.

In golf, the girls tee off from shorter distances, and in basketball, the 3-point line is closer at the collegiate and professional levels, and the basketball is smaller.

“We have always had difference in men and women’s sports, even at the college level,” Piittmann said.

“Had the WIAA wished to challenge it and say we would like to make the decision, who knows how it would’ve turned out,” Krall said. “The argument wasn’t very strong.”

Safety challenges: Area drivers chime in on Tony Stewart

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Aug. 12, 2014

Safety challenges

Area drivers chime in on Tony Stewart

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

A fight broke out on the race track moments after the checkered flag flew over the 1979 Daytona 500, between Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough.

The fight took place after Allison and Yarborough crashed on the last lap of the race while battling for the lead.

For the first time, it was caught on live national television. On-track feuds and confrontations were around well before then and only continued in the years that have followed.

However, in light of Saturday’s incident involving NASCAR superstar Tony Stewart and 20year-old sprint car driver Kevin Ward Jr., which cost Ward’s life, the practice of on-track confrontations are being challenged.

“That happens all the time,” said Shane Wenninger of Kewaskum, who races sprint cars like the ones Stewart and Ward raced Saturday in upstate New York.

Stewart and Ward were involved in an on-track incident that sent Ward into the outside wall, damaging the car and brought out a caution flag. In moments, Ward jumped out of his car and charged toward Stewart, with cars traveling at an estimated 40 mph still circulating the track, to confront the three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion. In the process, Stewart clipped Ward with the rightrear tire of his car, dragged Ward underneath and threw him about 30 feet down the track.

Ward was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital late Saturday night, according to The Associated Press.

“I feel sad,” said Kewaskum’s Don Goeden, a sprint car driver at Plymouth Dirt Track. “I know in the heat of the moment that’s what happens.”

But nobody ever thought it would have this grave of a consequence.

“I was extremely disappointed,” said Warren Luedke, a member of the race committee on the Sheboygan County Fair Board, which runs Plymouth Dirt Track. “It shouldn’t happen. But it’s going to be a problem because the adrenaline is pumping so hard.”

The incident took place at Canandaigua Motorsports Park in Canandaigua, New York, about 30 miles southeast of Rochester, New York. Stewart was in the area to race with the Sprint Cup Series on Sunday, which was at Watkins Glen International Raceway in Watkins Glen, New York, about an hour south of Canandaigua, New York.

Stewart withdrew from Sunday’s NASCAR race and, according to media reports, has withdrawn from a sprint car race event schedule for Saturday in Plymouth, Indiana.

Since then, opinions and accusations of Stewart’s intent have run rampant through social media and the Internet. Stewart has been labeled a murderer and should be in prison for life. Others have been in defense of him, saying it was an accident and putting blame on Ward for getting out of his car and getting so close to the cars still circulating around the track.

“I don’t think he hit him intentionally,” said West Bend’s Paul Pokorski, who has raced sprint cars for more than 20 years. “I think it was accidental. I don’t know why Kevin Ward walked onto the race track, especially as far as he did. He could’ve stayed by his car, made a gesture. That’s typical.

“I guess only Tony knows what he saw and did.”

According to media reports, local authorities are gathering evidence to see if criminal charges will be brought on Stewart.

Pokorski and other area drivers just can’t piece together why Stewart would run over another driver intentionally.

“I think it’s sick that people are saying it,” Wenninger said. “There’s no doubt in my mind he didn’t do it intentionally.”

According to witness accounts from media reports, there was belief Stewart revved his engine or sped up when he was near Ward.

“My first thought (of Stewart) was it was more of a gesture at me, acknowledging the gesture, maybe saying the heck to you,” Pokorski said. “That’s typical. Most guys will gun their motor as their way of disagreement.”

Wenninger, a 10-year sprint car veteran, along with Pokorski, said with a sprint car, the best and quickest way to make a sharp turn is to step on the gas because that’s the way the cars are designed.

Wenninger said Stewart may have been caught by surprise at where Ward was on the track.

“You do a lot of steering with the back tires because it’s such a short wheel base,” Wenninger added. “You can use the throttle to direct yourself around. It’s nothing like a regular car.”

Beaver Dam Raceway and Plymouth Dirt Track have rules against drivers confronting other drivers on the track or getting out of their cars before safety crews arrive on the scene and rules are enforced.

“They either go back with their car on the wrecker or in an ambulance; they can’t walk back,” Luedke said, adding the only exception for a driver to get out of their car before the safety crew arrives is if there is a fire.

Todd Thelen, co-promoter at Slinger Superspeedway, didn’t want to comment on if such a rule exists at Slinger, but said “it’s standard unwritten policy at every track that I’ve ever been to that you need to stay at the car until safety gets there.

“It’s common sense.”

Stewart has raced in the region on a handful occasions, most recently in 2013 at Plymouth.

“He was an extremely good competitor and good man to work with, really easy to work with,” Luedke said. “He wanted to be treated like the rest of the guys. He wanted to come to town and be like the local guy.”

While the hope is to eliminate future incidents, the hope is far-fetched.

“Your adrenaline is so high,” Wenninger said. “When it’s happening, you’re not thinking about it at all.”

Rally scoring advances into next decade

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Aug. 8, 2014

Rally scoring advances into next decade

Rule change ‘reinvented’ sport

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

There was apprehension regarding the change. There was also curiosity.

Ten years later, most wonder how volleyball ever lived without it.

This year will be the beginning of the second decade of rally scoring in Wisconsin high school volleyball.

Rally scoring was implemented in Wisconsin in 2004. Rally scoring is when points are scored following every rally rather than only being able to score when your team serves.

“I would not have foreseen it as being a huge impact as it has (been),” Slinger volleyball coach Michelle Lastovich said. “The game reinvented itself.”

West Bend West’s former coach and area club coach Alex Uhan said, “I actually think it was better for the game.”

The apprehension was it got away from tradition. Everybody knew you needed to score 15 points to win a volleyball set. But they also knew you had to be on serve to score a point.

However, the curiosity was there as to how it was going to change the sport — positive or negative.

“I kind of felt it was going to be a little difficult knowing the score was going to go longer and there was more strategy involved,” Uhan said. “You were so focused on offense, offense and offense because that was the only way you’re going to score. I think defense lacked a little bit.

“Defense is now more important. Their positions are more valuable. I was a little curious how everything was going to pan out because it was so offensive-based.”

The change was made for many reasons. Pace of play or flow of the game was one the biggest reasons.

Volleyball also has substitution rules. At the club level, a team is allowed 12 subs per set, while it is 18 at the high school level. With a long match, teams ran out of subs.

With rally scoring, that is rarely a worry.

The hope was to also reduce the amount of time games took.

Another major reason for the change was to involve more players on one side of the court.

And because of that, players were forced to be better all-around. Every player on the court mattered, not just one or two of the big hitters on the outside who got all the glory for scoring the points. “That’s why the numbers are so big,” Uhan said. Every point also mattered, which made players mentally tougher, too.

“I think they didn’t know how intense the change was going to be,” Uhan said. “The game has taken off to a whole another level.”

At about the same time, the defensive specialist or libero position was introduced. The position is just as it sounds. That player’s main responsibility is to get a dig off an attack to set up a play, putting an emphasis on defense.

Another position which saw a boost in importance after rally scoring was implemented was middle hitter/blocker.

A block of an offensive attack was now worth a point whereas before it was just a side-out and no point was awarded.

“It makes the effort count,” Uhan said.

“I think you’re getting stronger players in blocking,” he added. “When you can put up a good block, with a solid offense, you’re winning two battles.”

“Every person on the court is now valuable,” Lastovich said. “You have kids that are more agile than they were 10-15 years ago.

“I think rally scoring has been a good change for volleyball; it will help the sport evolve.”

Serving and its importance also changed.

A serve into the net wasn’t punishable with a point for the other team. It was just the serve. Now a serve into the net costs a team a point.

Under the old system, it wasn’t rare to see a player just step up to the service line and let it rip.

There is and has to be more strategy.

“You’ve got to be smart about it,” Uhan said.

Uhan said the change was made before his freshman year at Homestead High School. It took him about half a season to get used to the change and fall in love with it.

Lastovich, a traditionalist because she played her volleyball career under the old format, took a little bit longer to warm up to it.

She saw it was the perfect change after seeing the overall development of her players at Slinger.

“It has made the game better,” she said.

Prunty wins 2nd feature of season

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Aug. 5, 2014

Prunty wins 2nd feature of season

Championship leader struggles

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News

SLINGER — Dennis Prunty still wonders what might’ve been.

Prunty won his second super late model feature of the season Sunday at Slinger Superspeedway, holding off Lowell Bennett on a restart with 14 laps to go in the 60lap event.

It was Prunty’s 24th career super late model victory, fifthmost overall since 1998. His brother, David, is next on the list with 28.

“I wish it was the Nationals, but it isn’t,” Prunty said in victory lane. “Things happen and that car’s been fast all year.”

Bennett finished second, followed by John DeAngelis, Jeff Holtz and Braison Bennett to round out the top five. Taking second was a relief for Lowell Bennett, the seven-time track champion.

“We went out in the first practice session and just had a terrible vibration,” Lowell Bennett said. “Tip my hat to (the crew), they worked so hard here this afternoon and got this thing back together.

“Then we go out to qualify and the thing is so loose after we got rid of that vibration. We threw everything but the kitchen sink at it.”

Prunty led the final 42 laps of the race and was tough throughout the day, which was similar to his dominating performance July 15 at Slinger Nationals. But the dream of winning Nationals was halted 23 laps short from the finish because of a faulty ignition wire.

“I was hoping it was something else because that’s something I could’ve prevented,” Prunty said.

He and his crew went through everything they could think of as they were preparing the car for that night. They just forgot one thing and it cost them.

“I keep thinking why didn’t I just do that,” Prunty said. “But you can only do so much.”

Championship points leader Steve Apel finished 12th and it was a rough night for the defending track champion.

For the second week in a row, he got caught up in a multi-car crash early in the feature. Later in the race, he was black flagged for driving three-wide into a corner, which initiated a crash with 14 laps to go. Three-wide racing is illegal at Slinger in the super late model division.

On July 27, Apel was caught in a first-lap multi-car crash, but rallied for a third-place finish.

On lap 8, DeAngelis, while running in the top five, appeared to lose a bit of the handle of his car coming out of Turn 4. At the same time, Austin Luedtke, who was right behind DeAngelis, was tapped from behind by Rob Braun, which sent Luedtke’s car sideways and mayhem ensued.

Dave McCardle got clipped in the rightrear quarter-panel and shot straight into the outside wall, contact so hard his car lifted into the air. Behind him, Dale Prunty went flying over the back of Braun’s car and into the outside wall as well. In all, seven cars were involved in the crash, including Conrad Morgan and Tommy Hromadka.

McCardle walked into the ambulance under his power. He was checked and released. He said it was one of the hardest hits he’s had in his career.

“We were just a victim,” Dale Prunty said.

“I just saw cars scatter,” Lowell Bennett said.

Dennis Prunty was behind McCardle when the crash began.

“I didn’t see what happened,” Prunty said. “I think two cars made contact and I can’t tell you why because I wasn’t really watching them. I was racing.

“I just cleared them.”

Even with Apel’s rough night, Lowell Bennett and Dennis Prunty were only able to chip off 28 points of Apel’s lead in the points standings with only four races left in the season for the super late model division, five for the others. What helped Apel was he was the division’s fast qualifier.

“I would think Steve would have to take off a week or two for us to catch him,” Prunty said. “He has a pretty smooth lead.”

Bennett is second in points, 166 points behind Apel, while Prunty is third, 171 behind Apel.

“You never know,” said Prunty, the 2012 track champion. “With the way we’ve been running, I seem to get pretty good finishes and we keep out of the wrecks, and we’re always there at the end. So, who knows? Maybe we’ll keep finishing ahead of him. We’ll see what happens.”

It was a busy night for the safety crew at the track. After the lap-8 melee, there were four cautions. In addition, only 10 of the 19 cars that started finished the race.

Another crash took place in the Slinger Bees feature after the super late model feature.

On lap 7, Slinger’s Jayden Buckley crashed hard into the side of TJ Graczkowski’s car after he spun in Turn 4. It appeared Buckley didn’t slow as she approached Graczkowski’s car. Buckley had to be cut out of the car and put on a backboard as she was complaining of neck soreness. She was awake and alert, and was transported to Aurora Medical Center in Hartford as precaution. More information was not made available.

Despite the rough and costly night on the track, winning the super late model feature was an uplifting moment for Prunty. However, it was a small one.

“The car felt just as good as it did at the Nationals,” Prunty said. “It was a good feeling. It just felt that good again.”