EWA BEACH, Hawaii — It was rough enough when Ashley Badis and her girls’ water polo teammates had to practice in the ocean, battling fickle winds and choppy waves because their high school had failed to provide them a pool.
But it was humiliating, Badis said, when she learned about female athletes on other teams lugging their gear around school all day, running to a nearby Burger King to use the bathroom, or changing clothes under the bleachers or on the bus. The boys had no such worries because they had their own locker room and facilities.
“Hearing how many concerns and complaints that they had — it made me feel like I’m not alone in this, but it’s so wrong that we’re all being treated like this,” Badis, now 21, said in an interview at her family’s home in this Honolulu suburb.