DON McDERMOTT MORE COLUMNS Advertisement

I started covering sports as a high school student in the fall of 1953, and I have been collecting a paycheck for doing it regularly since 1962. So, attribute the following to the views of a veteran observer of athletes in action, coaches doing their jobs, and administrators, while they mean well, not protecting the interests of either athlete or coach ... for whatever reasons.

What prompts this diatribe of sorts are the following events:

* The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association ruled in 2005 that girls Class 4-A soccer in southern Nevada would move from the winter to the fall in 2008.

* A parent (who is also an attorney) threatens to sue under an alleged Title IX infringment, that if that switch transpires, his daughter is denied an opportunity to play soccer in the winter and volleyball in the fall.

* The NIAA and Clark County School District agree that soccer will remain a winter sport for the 2008-2009 school year while the NIAA makes plans to add another girls' sport in the 2009-2010 school year.

Caught in the middle of all these adult-generated machinations is the girls' soccer program at Pahrump Valley High School. The rights of the 30 girls who play that sport at PVHS apparently don't matter as much as that of one girl in the Green Valley district.

There is something ethically and morally wrong with the actions of both the NIAA -- which ruled against all logic that Pahrump Valley must move to Class 4-A in the 2008-2009 school year -- and the CCSD. Several Las Vegas-based 4-A schools have not made a secret of their disdain for traveling to Pahrump Valley for non-league games for the last several years.

Their attitude has been: Trojans, you want to play us...come to Vegas ... YOU make the trip through the Spring Mountains pass.

It's a war of wills Pahrump Valley administrators seem to be unwilling to wage. But fairness is on their side -- not the NIAA's or the CCSD's. So why not take on that battle?