Teammate of girl who wants to join football team speaks out
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ATWOOD, Tenn. — It’s been more than a month since Thalia Townsend’s coach said she couldn’t play football because she is a girl. Since then, a professional football player and the ACLU have gotten involved. Now one of her teammates is joining the fight. “She is really, really good, and like I said, I think she’s better than me,” Dallas Montgomery said. Montgomery has known Townsend since he was in second grade and says Townsend can hold her own on a football field. “At first I thought she was going to get hurt, but when she started hitting people, I said ‘she’s not going to get hurt,'” Montgomery said. West Carroll School District says Townsend is not allowed to play because of her gender and that the school offers other sports for her to play. “We went into the field house, and the coach came in and we said, ‘coach, we got a girl on the team.’ He said no, we can’t do that,” Montgomery said. Montgomery says the team was shocked to hear the news and were upset they lost one of their best players. “It don’t matter what gender you are. You can play whatever sport you want to play,” Montgomery said. Montgomery has a message for those in charge — a message some would call mature beyond his years. “They should let Thalia play because, like I said, she is a really nice player. She is nice to us,” Montgomery said. “She is always smiling and laughing. She is just like another guy to us.”
