A high school track team in Texas was disqualified after one of its members made a religious gesture, it was reported.
Columbus High School’s 4 X 100 relay team cannot go to the state championship after one of their runners made a gesture toward the sky, reported WFAA TV.
After the team ran the fastest race of the year, runner Derrick Hayes pointed upwards toward the sky, which his father said was a religious gesture.
“It was a reaction,” father KC Hayes told the station, referring to his son pointing upward to the sky. “He just said, ‘Dad, I was pointing at the heavens,’” Hayes also told KRIV television. “As a team, they reached their goal and, in an instant it was just gone, over something we think is a non-issue.”
“To see four kids, you know, what does that tell them about the rest of their lives? You’re going to do what’s right, work extra hard, and have it ripped away from you?” he asked, according to WFAA.
Columbus ISD Superintendent Robert O’Connor, however, said that the gesture was against high school sports’ rules. He said a team cannot partake in an excessive act of celebration, which includes raising hands.
“I don’t think that the situation was technically a terrible scenario as far as his action, but the action did violate the context of the rule,” he said.
He elaborated to FOX News in Houston: “You can do whatever you want to in terms of prayer, kneeling or whatever you want to once you get out of the competition area. You just can’t do it in the competition area. It goes back to the taunting rule. I can’t taunt my opponent.”
O’Connor admitted that the disqualification was “heartbreaking” and said he has received a number of e-mails, including one saying “‘Dear sir, you, are an idiot.”
O’Connor said that he was not responsible for the decision, as it was handed down by the league.
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