Sunday, November 13, 2011

Kye's Not Playing This NCAA Basketball Season

The 2011-12 NCAA collegiate basketball season is getting underway at collegiate arenas and gyms near you.

But if you surfed by the George Washington University athletic website and perused the 2011-12 lineups for the GWU women's or men's basketball teams, you will not see Kye Allums' name listed on either roster or in the team photos.

GWU announced that Kye Allums "has decided that it is in his best interest to no longer participate in intercollegiate athletics."

Allums had last year's historic season cut short by two early concussions he suffered early in the season that limited his playing time to a mere eight games and announced in May he wasn't going to play his senior season.

"I alone came to this conclusion," Allums said in a statement released by GWU, "and I thank the athletic department for respecting my wishes."

He's enrolled in classes at GWU for the fall semester, and was asked in an interview back in March what he would do if he couldn't play ball again.

"I'll just be trying to make some kind of difference in the world," he said at the time."Try to get into grad school and look forward to my life."

You're off to a great start in terms of making a difference in the world already, Kye. Your visibility as a trans athlete opened the door to have those serious discussions that needed to happen on the issue of trans participation in sports and led to NCAA rules that will make it easier or future trans student athletes to compete at the collegiate level.

Best of luck this semester, in the future and much success in whatever you choose to do with the rest of your life.

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