San Jose State volleyball coach with transgender player says politics plays into opponents forfeiting
The San Jose State women's volleyball team lost to Colorado State on Thursday night in one of its rare non-cancelled games in recent weeks. Head coach Todd Kress said he even considered thanking Colorado State coach Emily Kohan just for agreeing to play his team, as the program is currently at the center of a national controversy.
Four of San Jose State's scheduled opponents – Boise State, Southern Utah, Wyoming and Utah State – all forfeited their games to the Spartans amid an ongoing lawsuit by one of its players over the presence of a transgender player on the team.
"I walked up to Emily tonight, and I was like, ‘Should I say thank you for playing us?’ I seriously meant that because, of course, we're disappointed that we're losing opportunities to play, but it's not just us that are losing opportunities to play. It's the people choosing not to play us, and that's very unfortunate when it comes to these young women that have earned the right to step on the court and play," Kress said in a postgame press conference, as seen in documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
San Jose Redshirt junior Blaire Fleming, who had 14 kills but with 10 errors on Thursday night, is a transgender athlete who has played for San Jose State since 2022 after transferring from Coastal Carolina. Meanwhile, junior Brooke Slusser, who joined the team in 2023 after transferring from Alabama, joined in a lawsuit against the NCAA, headed by former college swimmer and OutKick contributor Riley Gaines, over the governing body's current policies on gender identity. Slusser cited her experience with Fleming when she joined the lawsuit.
WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM WITH TRANSGENDER PLAYER GETTING POLICE PROTECTION AMID INTENSE BACKLASH
Slusser claimed that she had not been aware that Fleming was transgender, despite sharing rooms together on team trips, per the court documents. Slusser also expressed safety concerns for opponents playing against Fleming. Slusser's complaint said that she and the other players on the team "could not fully protect themselves" from Fleming's volleyball spikes.
Idaho governor Brad Little, Utah governor Spencer Cox and Wyoming governor Mark Gordon commended the four universities in their respective states over the decisions to forfeit their games against San Jose State amid the controversy.
Kress said he believes that the role of government has impeded his team's ability to play the matches on its schedule.
"We're in a position where it appears that government and politics has kind of intertwined itself with college sports. And the one thing that I love about college sports, it's always been a safe haven for me, that's one area that government I don't think should be involved. And it seems that some of those decisions are being made at levels to where they're denying their student athletes as well, which is then denying our student athletes," Kress said.
Many states have taken legislative action over the past year aimed to keep transgenders out of women's sports, including the Defending Women's Sports Act, which Little issued an executive order for his states to carry out in August.
However, most of these actions are in response to attempted Title IX changes by the Biden-Harris administration. In April, the Biden administration issued a sweeping rule that clarified that Title IX’s ban on "sex" discrimination in schools covers discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and "pregnancy or related conditions."
GOP GOVERNOR REVEALS WHY HE ORDERED SCHOOLS TO BAR TRANSGENDERS FROM GIRLS SPORTS
The rule took effect Aug. 1, and, for the first time, the law stated that discrimination based on sex includes conduct related to a person’s gender identity. The Biden administration insisted that the regulation does not address athletic eligibility. However, multiple experts presented evidence to Fox News Digital in June that Biden's claims that it would not result in biological men participating in women's sports weren't true and that the proposal would ultimately put more biological men in women's sports.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to reject a Biden emergency request to enforce portions of that new rule that includes protection from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX, after more than two dozen Republican attorneys general sued to block the Title IX changes in their own states.
Now, with states like Idaho taking countermeasures against these amendments, Little may have to prepare for even further countermeasures at the federal level in the event of a Harris victory this November.
"We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it," Little told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview when asked whether he expects a Harris victory to result in his schools losing federal funding due to the order he just passed. "From a national standpoint, there are radical little groups that want to implement changes in the rules that we have already."
Meanwhile, Kress will look to navigate his team's season in a landscape of different state laws impacting his team's schedule. Kress added that the situation involving the game cancelations, the lawsuit and national controversy have impacted the mental well-being not only of Fleming, but the team as a whole.
"I talked to all of our students. You know, I am a father first, right? I had two boys of my own, and I know that mental health is a real thing, and I know that my kids get through it, and so I think that's the first thing I look out for, is protecting physical and mental health. Do I talk with Blaire? She is taking the majority of the heat, but all of our athletes are taking some of this. So, you know, I'm really trying to talk to all of our student athletes and see how they're doing," Kress said.
Things have gotten to the point where university police have been assigned to provide added security to the team in response to negative attention it has received recently, a San Jose State spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Still, San Jose State was technically undefeated going into Thursday night, as the forfeits by the other programs counted as wins for the Spartans by default. They are now 9-1 with a 3-1 conference record. The forfeits don't count toward the team's NCAA resume, but Fleming's skills and spiking ability may be just one advantage that could help the team reach the tournament, as Kress believes the tension in the locker room might not be "a bad thing" from a competitive standpoint.
"Sometimes tension is not necessarily a bad thing, and I'm not saying that there is. But you know, when you do have tension or you do have confrontations, I mean, I'm a person that believes that from confrontation, good things usually happen. We settle our differences, and we work through it," Kress said.
"The last thing that I would want is there's the white elephant in the room, and there is no tension, we don't address it, and we never move past it, right? So I think there may be tension, but it dies. If we're in a meeting room and there's tension, it dies there. If there's tension on the court, it dies there. We really don't let the boundaries cross over, and that's how I think we've been so successful thus far."
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.