You can often find Faulder’s Tavian Gaudiuso, courting his passion wherever he can.
“I love basketball,” Gaudiuso told Global News while shooting some baskets at a public court in Penticton.
But where you won’t find the 16-year-old South Okanagan basketball fanatic is playing his final year of high school basketball for Summerland Secondary School. He was forced to transfer from Penticton Secondary School to Summerland Secondary School earlier this spring because of what he described as bullying.
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“Being put down pretty often for maybe not being as good as everybody or just being told I’m not good enough,” Gaudiuso said. “That I should leave. Getting made fun of by teammates in the hallway. That kind of stuff.”
But BC School Sports, the body governing school sport in the province didn’t see it that way, and denied Tavian’s transfer to play for Summerland Secondary, as well as an appeal, despite letters of support from both Summerland and Penticton Secondary schools.
“Bullying is one of the eligibility policies that we have to allow a student to play,” said Jordan Abney, executive director at B.C, School Sports.
“In this case, without getting into specifics based on the fact that the transfer was not approved, it would probably lead most people to suspect that it didn’t meet the threshold or the definition that we have in place,” Abney explained.
So while Tavian is allowed to practice with the team at Summerland Secondary School, he is not allowed to play in any games.
Tavian’s mom wholeheartedly disagrees with the decision to deny her son the right to play his final year of high school basketball.
“Bullying is such a grey area and this feels like they are making decisions that are black and white,” said Kyla Gaudiuso.
Kyla Gaudisuo says the reason it didn’t meet BC School Sports’ requirements is because the family chose not to fully pursue the alleged bullying for fear Tavian may have suffered repercussions.
Even if Tavian didn’t want to name the bullies, Kyla Gaudiuso feels it was a good case for BC School Sports.
“But it wasn’t.”
For his part, Tavian thinks his case got caught up in recruitment guidelines preventing star players from transferring to another school, even though he says he’s not a stand-out player.
“It’s not very encouraging, I wanted to play the sport I love in my last year of high school,” Tavian said.
However, BC School Sports maintains they are just applying the rules.
“It’s too bad and it’s nothing that we take enjoyment from. We want kids playing,” Abney said.
“But at the same time it’s our job to to apply the rules that our schools have put in place to protect school sport as a bigger entity. Unfortunately that comes with some costs or unfortunate circumstances,” Abney added.
So it appears that Tavian Gaudiuso’s passion for playing high school basketball may have become a victim of not only bullying, but the rules set out to prevent it.