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Not a Misprint

Meet the Slovakian Exchange Student Who Excels At (Boys’) Tennis

by Jamie Frevele | 12:29 pm, April 24th, 2012


Lenka Zalinska was really good at tennis in her native Slovakia. She attended a school devoted to athletics in Kosice, the country’s second-largest city. Now, she goes to an American high school in Brainerd, Minnesota as an exchange student where she still plays tennis — on the boys’ team. You might be wondering why she isn’t on the girls’ team, and the answer is simple: she missed tryouts. Fortunately, the school’s rules allow girls to try out for the boys’ team, where Zalinska continues to amaze.

By the time Zalinska arrived in America this past January, the girls’ tennis team’s season had already ended. And this avid athlete was not about to waste all her time at the Mall of America (as fun as that place seems — there is a roller coaster, I hear!). Instead, she found out that according to Minnesota High School League rules, she would be allowed to try out for the boys’ tennis team. Those rules states the following:

“Girls must be allowed to try out for boys teams, contact or non-contact sports, even if a team for girls exists. Schools are required to offer single-sex teams for girls in certain circumstances as a means to remedy the past and continued discrimination against girls in sport.

“However, these teams must be offered on a completely voluntary basis, meaning that girls have the right to play on the all-girls team or to try out to play on a boys team.”

And not only has she been embraced by the rest of her team, on which she plays No. 2 singles, but she has also more than earned their respect and proven her place on the team — after four meets, she is undefeated. She’s also teaching everyone some Slovakian, but that’s just for fun. When she’s on the court, she is there to play tennis and provide a good showing for the Brainerd Warriors. That kind of focus made it easier for all the boys on the team to adjust to having a female teammate, and now, she’s just another strong tennis player. Says teammate Reno Fussy, who plays doubles, they’ve “never played with a girl before in [their] season, but she’s really good and she’s an asset to the team.”

More like a “kicking asset” … sorry. Rock on, Lenka Zalinska!

Pic by Steve Kohls, Brainerd Dispatch

(via Brainerd Dispatch)

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  • http://www.facebook.com/1shewolf JoAnna Luffman

    Actually a really good reason for her to try out on the boys team, seeing as how she was out of the country during the girls season. I have to give her huge props, too – I played with guys when I was in high school, and they are a lot harder to face. 

  • Frodo Baggins

    Gratulácie!

  • Anonymous

    This just in! Foreign girl plays high school sport! Stop the presses!

    Though it makes me wonder why other girls at the school don’t just play year round. Or can they only be on one team? If that’s the case she’ll an off season no matter what.

  • Anonymous

    I stopped reading as soon as I hit “Brainerd, Minnesota”, and started doing Fargo jokes. Sorry.

    It’s neat that there was no “She had to fight tooth and claw for a chance to play” part of the story, and went right to playing and being good and everybody liking her.

    No worries, tho, when they make the movie they’ll add that bit back in.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VK7U6RFTAUIPW2JR2NGPBP2IYA super

    what happens when the reverse situation occurs???  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/10-year-old-banned-from-ny-field-hockey-team-for-being-too-good/
    http://www.myfoxny.com/story/17760446/boy-too-good-to-play-on-field-hockey-team
    Keeling Pilaro is one of the best field hockey
    players in Southampton, N.Y. In fact he’s one of the best in his
    division. He’s s leading scorer and a true champ. And yet he isn’t
    allowed to play on his high school team because he’s too good.

    Keeling is all of about 4 feet 8 inches and 82
    pounds: hardly intimidating off the turf, but when he picks up a field
    hockey stick he’s a star — or at least he had been the last two years
    he’s played on Southampton High School’s varsity team. That is exactly
    why he’s not allowed to play this year.    

    “I do hope they let me play,” he said. “I really like these girls — they are my family.”

    Keeling is the only boy playing on an all girls
    team. After two years Section 11, which oversees Suffolk County’s high
    school sports, determined that as a boy, Keeling is such an impressive
    player, he is “having a significant adverse effect on some of his
    opposing female players… the rules state he would be allowed to play
    if he wasn’t the dominant player.”

    He said he is not the best and is not dominating,
    but not the worst. He said some girls are faster and stronger and can
    beat him one on one beat me.

    But section 11′s executive director, Ed Cinelli,
    told Fox 5: “As a sport it’s a girls sport. When a boy plays, it leads
    the way for other male players to come in and take over.”
     

  • Anonymous

    “The sport was created to show the futility of individual achievement…”
    –John Houseman, Rollerball

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