An ill-timed and seemingly baseless disqualification from a Myrtle Beach tournament has left a Charlottesville-based travel basketball team and the players’ parents scratching their heads.
The U-11 Charlottesville Cavs were informed shortly after a victory in the tournament’s Elite Eight that they’d been disqualified for playing a female player, Kymora Johnson, a rising fifth grader from Charlottesville. This was despite the fact that tournament officials were aware from check-in that Johnson is a girl and indicated to the team’s coaches that they were allowed one girl.
“I felt kind of bummed that we got disqualified,” Johnson said via phone in Myrtle Beach. “We were really close to getting to the championship. I just felt bad for my teammates who couldn’t play and worked really hard to get to the championship.”
The young basketball standout has played on the Cavs since she was in kindergarten and has actually played in this tournament, the National Travel Basketball Association’s national championships, without incident, in the two years before this. Tournament officials told Kymora’s mother Jessica Thomas-Johnson after the disqualification that the rules had changed this year despite the fact that it was never mentioned during registration. During the tournament’s check-in process that includes a presentation of a birth certificate, Thomas-Johnson said that there was an approximately 10-minute conversation before it was decided that the team could have a single female player, making it clear that tournament officials knew Kymora was a female.
“We submit all of the paperwork, the whole team checks in in full uniform, with a birth certificate,” Thomas-Johnson said. “She has hot pink fingernail polish and a pink headband. She’s a girl.”
More perplexing still was the timing of tournament officials, who waited until after the Cavs had advanced to the semifinals to disqualify the squad.
The team started play on Wednesday in the tournament. When it was suggested to a tournament official that he simply allow the Cavs to continue playing without Johnson in the lineup, he indicated to Thomas-Johnson that he’d already disqualified a team from Florida who had a female player.
“(We asked them to) let the rest of this team play tomorrow, let’s be fair,” Thomas-Johnson said. “Even if that was the rule, which is nowhere to be found. As of now they’ve said we’re disqualified.”
The NTBA’s tournament fees sit at $450 per team and parents are required to pay a $40 spectator fee per person for the tournament.
The team and parents jumped into action this afternoon with a grassroots social media campaign with the hashtag #equalityforkymora leading the charge. The team’s game was scheduled for 9 a.m. Sunday and they currently plan to show up ready to play.
We’ve reached out to the South Carolina-based National Travel Basketball Association for comment, but they have not replied. If they reach out we will update this story.
