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Gabe Grab considers himself lucky. He didn't have to wear a skirt.

"I got made fun of for that all the time," he said. "Even though I never had to wear it."

Grab, 17, minded the net for the Central Dauphin High School field hockey team for four years and, as its only male player, was the object of suspicion and ridicule for playing against girls. While the sport is popular with men overseas and a thriving club system exists in parts of California, there are few alternatives for Grab. Fortunately, his position in goal allowed him to wear shorts.

Unlike girls who fight convention to play on their high school football team or grapple with boys on the wrestling mat, boys like Grab meet with resistance from opposing coaches and parents — sometimes even their own school districts — rather than admiration.

Strangely, it is the Equal Rights Amendment to the state constitution, a triumph of the women's rights movement, that provides Grab the opportunity to play.

Though individual districts can set their own policy, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body of high school athletics in the state, is barred from establishing a rule preventing boys from playing on girls' teams and vice versa due to a 1975 state court injunction based on the Equal Rights Amendment.

After struggling through a joyless football season as a freshman, Peter Schauf decided to play volleyball, a sport he loved. His suburban Philadelphia school, Harriton, did not have a boys' team. Presented with the option of playing boys volleyball for sister school Lower Merion or playing on the girls' team, Schauf opted to stay put.

"The whole point of playing high school sports is playing for your school," he said.

Opposing coaches, concerned about safety, objected. When he began to play, they suggested playing Schauf on the back line, where he wouldn't be able to attack the net. Why? At 6'1", Schauf had an easier time rising above the net — which is 7½ inches lower for girls than for boys — than his opponents.

At the heart of the issue is gender equality, safety and fairness. Supporters of boys like Grab and Schauf say they should have the same access to sports granted to female athletes while opponents say introducing boys to a traditionally all-girls sport poses a safety hazard and ruins the sanctity of women's sports.

"Physically, your average boy is going to be bigger and stronger than your average girl," said Athena Yiamouyiannis, executive director of the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports. "The intent of sex-segregated athletic programs is to provide both genders with a chance to compete."

Yiamouyiannis compared boys competing with girls to eliminating weight classes in wrestling.

"It's like a 115-pound wrestler competing against a 200-pound wrestler," she said.

Title IX, the landmark 1972 education rule against sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving federal aid, does not necessarily apply in these cases, according to Jocelyn Samuels, vice president for education and employment at the National Women's Law Center.

"What schools are required to do is provide equal opportunity to participate in sports for boys and girls," she said.

As long as equal competitive opportunities exist for both genders, "a school does not have to have sex-segregated teams at all," Samuels said.

While the state's equal rights amendment was primarily focused on women's rights, PIAA legal counsel Alan Boynton said the issue of boys playing on girls' teams may have been an "unintended consequence" of the amendment.

"If you prevent boys and girls from competing or practicing, you're making a distinction based on gender, and that's discrimination" according to the injunction, he said.

Massachusetts likewise allows boys to compete with girls, leading to a venomous debate over Bradley Bell, a former South African youth national team member, playing field hockey.

Bell played only his freshman year at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School in 2001 then moved on to a men's club team in Boston.

Bell's former coach, Deb Reed, said he dealt with abuse from opposing fans and unwanted media attention when all he wanted was to play the game.

"It's tough for a 14-year-old to deal with all that," she said.

Elsewhere, the New York State Education Department's "mixed competition" guidelines provide girls with the opportunity to play on boys teams, but allow a school administrator to bar a boy from competing on a girls team if he would adversely affect the level of competition.

While Schauf had an affinity for volleyball, Grab began his field hockey career with a few friends on seventh-grade dare. He's the only one who stuck.

His dedication paid off. He spent two months in 2002 touring Europe as part of the men's Under-16 national team.

His high school teammates, he said, have supported him. Even many opposing players didn't mind testing their skills against a boy.

Opposing coaches are less supportive.

"A couple of times they wouldn't shake my hand," he said.

Grab doesn't see the debate as a big deal.

"I think that the girls can play on the football team, so it should go both ways," he said. "It's only a high school field hockey game."

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