Illegal uniforms get basketball team booted from Calif. playoffs

A southern California girls high school basketball team has been removed from the playoffs after wearing uniforms that were not in compliance with the rules.

During Saturday’s game, Narbonne (Harbor City) wore jerseys with pink around its numbers, according to the L.A. Times. Breast Cancer Awareness month is October, and because the team didn’t have permission to wear colors outside of its traditional team colors, it was punished.

The team was removed from the division playoffs and will not be allowed to participate in the state tournament. The L.A. Times reported that the school was already on probation after last season playing an athlete who received two technical fouls in a previous game — a violation of the rules.

From the article:

“Breast cancer awareness is in October, and there’s a process for people to request color change,” said section commissioner John Aguirre. “If they’re going to blatantly disregard these rules and regulations, they’re going to affect kids.”

Narbonne Coach Victoria Sanders said she was unaware that prior approval was needed to wear pink on the uniforms.

“I was under the impression we were able to do it,” she said. “I didn’t know we had to fill out a waiver.”

In an article from the Daily Breeze, Sanders said the pink numbers “were simply to show solidarity with the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, which hosts ‘Play 4 Kay’ every February to raise money for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund for breast cancer research. Yow was a former North Carolina State women’s basketball coach who died in 2009.”