Should high school sports make accommodations for an individual student’s religious beliefs?
One local family believes so and, because they had done so in the past, asked the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association to do just that.
The WIAA declined.
Sherry Kenady’s Christian beliefs declares the Sabbath falls on Saturday and, per scripture, she and her family hold that day aside as one of rest and religious reflection.
Kenady made her formal request to WIAA in April 2018, when her sons, Kurtis and Bradley, varsity singles and doubles tennis players for Medical Lake High School, advanced to post-season play.
But post-season competition was scheduled for a Saturday, the Sabbath, which is observed from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, so the boys didn’t compete.
It isn’t the first time Kenady has encountered this conflict.
In 2016, Brittney Kenady, then a varsity track athlete, often missed Saturday track meets. Last year the Kenady brothers also chose not to play in Saturday matches.
Kenady acknowledged that it was a tall request to fill. But she noted there was also a precedent for such an accommodation.
In 2017, the WIAA made a Sabbath accommodation for state volleyball, moving the 1B and 2B tournaments from Friday-Saturday to Thursday-Friday “upon the recommendation from legal council,” according to the WIAA website.
“I realize this may be a difficult thing to accommodate, given the tradition of sport schedules,” she wrote in her 2018 letter to WIAA officials.
The WIAA agreed, but despite the precedent, denied Kenady’s request.
WIAA Assistant Executive Director Andy Barnes wrote cryptically that such requests were made for basketball and volleyball “because those requests were reasonable.” Accommodation requests for individual sports, including tennis, were not “because of the nature of those sports and the inability to accommodate the needs of all individuals.”
In response, Kenady wrote to Barnes suggesting this was an opportunity to show leadership by modifying “your traditional schedules of Saturday competitions to a typical school week of Monday — Friday and eliminate actual or perceived religious discrimination” of favoring Saturday over Sunday competitions.
Many other Christian denominations hold Sunday as the Sabbath.
Unsatisfied with the WIAA response, on May 3, Kenady filed a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General.
The AG responded on May 8 that Kenady’s complaint was determined to be appropriate for an informal — and voluntary — complaint resolution process.
The WIAA appeared initially unrepentant.
“Team sports have fewer games to schedule, and a lot of times it’s an indoor situation,” WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese said during a phone interview. “If we don’t do it on typical days — Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday — then we’re encroaching even more on a school day.”
He noted the WIAA works with schools to balance sports and academics.
Colbrese also noted that if they accommodate one athlete for one sport, then accommodation would have to be made for all athletes in all sports, which would make individual sport tournaments challenging, if not impossible to conduct.
He cited state tournaments such as wresting or tennis, with their multiple matches and complex bracketing and logistics to manage over several days.
“It would be impossible to schedule an event without having a Saturday to use,” Colbrese said. “We would lose an entire day (of academics) if we didn’t use a Saturday.”
“It’s a challenge, no doubt about it,” he added.
Colbrese himself sent a second letter to Kenady after her complaint to the AG. Dated May 13, Colbrese wrote that high school sports have “historically” been played on Friday and Saturday.
“The days were not chosen to accommodate church-goers,” he noted.
Colbrese noted the WIAA is currently conducting a survey of its nearly 800 member schools to determine if they support a change in the format of tennis matches.
He didn’t say if the survey was a result of Kenady’s AG complaint.
According to his letter, issues requiring consideration in the survey included loss of student academic time due to limiting tennis matches to weekdays only, the availability of facilities and officials, the overall cost, and the ability of parents and fans to attend events.
As for Kenady, she received a response from the AGs office on Tuesday, May 21 that did nothing to accommodate her position regarding playing sports on the Sabbath.
In their email, the AG noted they “cannot compel a business to respond or to make an adjustment in resolution of a dispute. Your complaint has been closed accordingly.”
“It’s a challenge, no doubt about it.”
WIAA Executive Director Mike Colbrese
The WIAA is a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) service organization that “controls, regulates and supervises interscholastic activities within the state of Washington,” John Olsson, general counsel for the WIAA, wrote in a response to the AGs inquiry.
The response goes on to note that both Saturdays and Sundays have been, and will continue to be used for high school competitions.
The letter noted that team sports are able to accommodate Sabbath restrictions, “where the small number of games and format has allowed WIAA to move time to meet the restrictions faced by Saturday Sabbath observers. In individual sports, where multiple matches must be played, this format is not possible.”
In its response, the AG suggested Kenady hire legal representation if she chose to pursue the issue in the courts.
According to a 2016 Pew Research Center report that took all of America’s religious followers and placed them in a hypothetical town of 100 people, there would statistically be two people each of Mormon, Jewish and other faiths, one Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist, and 23 religiously unaffiliated people in the town.
Nearly half the population — 49 people — would be Christian. Of those, 25 would be Evangelical Protestant, 15 mainline Protestant, six historically black Protestant, 21 Catholic, and two of other Christian faith, according to the report.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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