A high school girls’ track & field coach in Washington state is lashing out after his girls lost a title to a team with a transgender runner.
Dean Vergillo, the coach of the Cedarcrest High School girls track & field team, spoke out after one of his girls lost the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) state track and field meet to trans athlete Veronica Garcia in May.
Coach Vergillo spoke out against the situation during an event hosted by the Independent Women’s Forum.
“As a cross country and track coach, everybody has a running style,” Vergillo said, according to Fox News. “It’s kind of like your fingerprint — everybody runs a little bit differently. In this case, it was obviously a male running.”
Would you look at that...the thing that never happens happened again.
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) May 25, 2024
🚨Veronica Garcia (Donovan Brown) just won the Washington State Championship in the girls' 400m in total domination.
In Washington & Oregon this past week, the fastest "girl" in the each state has been a boy. pic.twitter.com/jbAEhdyTDl
Vergillo added that his runner had actually set a school record but still lost to the trans athlete and that he and his girls had no idea that they were going to face a transgender runner.
“As a coach, I found out about it just through talking to other coaches from around the state,” Vergillo explained. “Then, in the [girls’] 400-meter open race, the individual from our school that qualified only found out about an hour before.”
Vergillo also blasted the state education establishment.
“It’s definitely going to be a bigger issue given that we’ll know what’s happening going into it. My biggest disappointment in this situation is how our state association [the WIAA] didn’t prepare us for what was coming,” he said. “We’ve had many coaches, through text, emails, or just verbally, state their displeasure with the situation.”
The state has passed education standards that allow transgender students to choose whatever gender category they want based on their chosen identity. However, there are no scientific or medical requirements placed on the athletes.
For his part, trans runner Veronica Garcia, who won the girl’s title with a 55.75 time, recently complained about being met with boos and opposition from other players and parents.
“I guess maybe I expected sportsmanship because I was cheering the rest of them on when they were called. So, I guess I expected to get that reciprocated. But I didn’t get that,” Gacria complained to the Spokesman-Review.
Garcia was also chagrined when he took the podium to receive his medal, and the crowd stopped clapping and cheering like they did for the girls who won other titles. On top of that, at least one person in the crowd yelled, “He’s not a girl.”
“I’m just a teenager. I wish people would remember that,” he added.
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