Editorial: High school sports should accommodate religion
The Decatur Heritage Christian Academy boys basketball team advanced to the state’s Final Four on Tuesday with a come-from-behind victory over a dogged team from Faith Christian School in Anniston.
It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Not only was Faith Christian a tougher challenge than expected, they weren’t even expected to be there. Faith Christian advanced because Oakwood Adventist Academy in Huntsville forfeited.
Oakwood and Faith had been scheduled to play Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Oakwood Adventist is a private Seventh-day Adventist School, and Seventh-day Adventists observe the traditional Jewish Sabbath, which starts at sunset Friday and ends at sunset Saturday. Oakwood Adventist requested that the Alabama High School Athletic Association reschedule the game to a time after sunset, but the AHSAA refused.
Rather than violate their religious principles, the team from Oakwood Adventist decided to forfeit the game. But they still traveled to the tournament to cheer on Decatur Heritage later that evening. The two teams had already played each other three times during the season, with DHCA taking two of the three.
“It was great to have them here,” Decatur Heritage senior Brayden Kyle said Saturday. “They have a great team and it was great to have their support.”
The Oakwood team also has great character, which it displayed in choosing principle over expediency. But they never should have had to choose in the first place. The AHSAA should have found a way to accommodate the private religious school. And the organization should have known it might have to make an accommodation. It’s not as if Oakwood Adventist advancing to the regional semifinal was a surprise to anyone.
The NCAA once had what was known as the “BYU rule,” which allowed scheduling adjustments in the NCAA basketball tournament for Brigham Young University, which doesn’t play on Sundays for religious reasons. An attempt to do away with the BYU rule raised an uproar, and the NCAA relented. It now has an even broader rule allowing for religious accommodations.
These are the sorts of adjustments we have come to expect in an increasingly pluralistic country with a tradition of religious toleration.
Alabama High School Athletic Association accommodates religion all the time: It doesn’t schedule games on Sundays. Even Wednesdays, a traditional Bible study night in the Deep South, is usually light on nighttime high school sports.
It is only fair for the AHSAA to make reasonable accommodations for teams from religious schools that have a different day of the week as their holy day.
Now Gov. Kay Ivey has gotten involved, writing a letter to the AHSAA seeking answers for its treatment of Oakwood Adventist. So far, the AHSAA’s only comment, coming before Ivey’s letter, is that it expects games to be played when scheduled.
That will not do. If the NCAA can juggle schedules to accommodate religious minorities, so can the AHSAA. High school sports are of, by and for the kids. They do not exist for the convenience of the organizers.
– From our sister-newspaper, The Decatur Daily
