The media attention for Kye Allums’ transition on a women’s basketball team has been so strong that the school held a special press conference to talk to the media…featuring Allums, the coach of the team, and a team captain. The Associated Press was there and did a great job with the highlights, and they even produced a 3-minute video of the presser (after the jump).
He can ask people to stop calling him a woman. He can show off his mohawk, face a dozen cameras at the Smith Center after a practice and declare: “Yes, I am a male on a female team.”
The media attention for Kye Allums’ transition on a women’s basketball team has been so strong that the school held a special press conference to talk to the media…featuring Allums, the coach of the team, and a team captain. The Associated Press was there and did a great job with the highlights, and they even produced a 3-minute video of the presser (after the jump).
He can ask people to stop calling him a woman. He can show off his mohawk, face a dozen cameras at the Smith Center after a practice and declare: “Yes, I am a male on a female team.”
So, for now, part of the dream is deferred for another. Allums is choosing basketball, a 21-year-old transgender player starting his junior season on the Colonials’ roster.
“It is hard,” Allums said, “because I would love for everything to happen right now. But, to those who wait, good things come. So I’m waiting and just focusing on basketball and school, and it’s going to come. As long as I think like that, it doesn’t seem like a hard thing.”
The presser was also the first time head coach Mike Bozeman addressed the media, and he couldn't have come across more supportive: He is exactly what we want to see out of our NCAA coaches. Though he did say something that couldn't be further from the truth:
This subject is going to be closed, as far as I'm concerned, after this.
It's a good thing for the coach to say and be focused on: Moving on past this distraction. But this issue won't be closed for many fans for a long time to come….
