From The Shake Your Head Files

Via The Dayton Daily News: Unbowed by handicap, legless player sidelined by ref (Free Reg. Req.)

Bobby Martin was born without legs, but the only thing that kept him from playing high school football last Friday night — as he had the three previous weekends — was a Cincinnati game official who told both the coaches and athletic directors that the Colonel White senior wasn't wearing proper equipment.

"He said Bobby couldn't play because he didn't have shoes on," Colonel White assistant Kerry Ivy said. "He told me the rule says a player must wear shoes, thigh pads and knee pads. I told him, 'He needs feet before he can wear shoes. He needs legs before he can wear those other pads. What are you thinking? Then he said Bobby needed a medical waiver. I told him he'd already played three games, but he said those were the rules."

The decision in the game at Mount Healthy left Martin in tears.

"It's the first time in my life I ever felt like that," Martin said Monday as he readied for practice after school. "Everybody was looking at me, talking about what I didn't have. I felt like a clown. I hated it. I just wanted to know why it was different this game than all the rest."

Dennis Daly, the officials' crew chief who announced the decision, wouldn't discuss the matter Monday night: "I have no comment. Talk to the Ohio High School Athletic Association."

Colonel White Athletics Director Carolyn Woodley and Jonas Smith, Dayton Public Schools AD, did Monday.

"Sometimes common sense has to prevail," Woodley said. "The doctors have said it's OK for Bobby to play, so have his parents, and he has the necessary grades. That's all he needs. Officials at the first three games had no problems. The way he was denied Friday, I thought it might be some kind of violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act."

Hank Zaborniak, an assistant OHSAA commissioner, talked to all parties involved Monday: "It's unfortunate this happened. The officials should have let him play."

It is hard to imagine how anyone could, like the ref involved here, have such sushi for brains. I also do not think the question about whether this was a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act is an idle one. The act has been so broadly interpreted in the past (often too braodly IMO) that I fail to see how this couldn't fall under it.

But what really gets me is the mindset of the ref. I just don't have it in me to be cruel to a kid and then shrug my shoulders and say "Those are the rules." It is sad that anyone does have that in them.