High School Track Coach Speaks Out After Transgender Runner Dominates Girl's State Championship

A transgender runner who goes by the name of Veronica Garcia recently won a high school state championship in Tacoma, Washington. Garcia's win propelled East Valley High School to the overall state title, and the coach of the team that finished runner-up is done staying silent.

Dean Vergillo, the coach of Cedarcrest High School, recently spoke to the Independent Women's Forum about his team competing, and ultimately falling short, in the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) state track and field meet in May. One member of his team had to compete against Garcia in the 400-meter sprint, a race Garcia won by a full second.

"As a cross country and track coach, everybody has a running style," he said. "It’s kind of like your fingerprint — everybody runs a little bit differently. In this case, it was obviously a male running."

Garcia's win in the 400-meter earned East Valley 10 points in the overall standings. Cedarcrest ultimately lost the meet by a total of eight points, which made Garcia's win the deciding factor in the overall standings. To add insult to injury, Vergillo's runner actually ran a school record in the 400-meter, yet still couldn't contend with Garcia, a biological male.

"As a coach, I found out about it just through talking to other coaches from around the state," Vergillo said. "Then, in the [girls’] 400-meter open race, the individual from our school that qualified only found out about an hour before."

"It’s definitely going to be a bigger issue given that we’ll know what’s happening going into it. My biggest disappointment in this situation is how our state association [the WIAA] didn’t prepare us for what was coming," he said. "We’ve had many coaches, through text, emails, or just verbally, state their displeasure with the situation."

A similar situation unfolded this year in Oregon with a transgender runner dominating girl's track meets. John Parks, a coach who was fired for defending women's sports in the state, recently joined OutKick's Riley Gaines on the ‘Gaines For Girls’ podcast to share his story, which you can watch and listen to here.

The WIAA policy allows every athlete to compete in programs "consistent with their gender identity or the gender most consistently expressed" while not requiring athletes to take part in any type of hormone therapy or use hormone blockers.

Garcia was reportedly met with boos from the crowd when they took the lead in the 400-meter race. 

When awarded a medal for winning the race, and taking an opportunity away from biological females, Garcia was confused as to why nobody cheered.

"I guess maybe I expected sportsmanship because I was cheering the rest of them on when they were called. So I guess I expected to get that reciprocated," they told the outlet. "But I didn’t get that."