College coach taking heat for scholarship offer to female pitcher

The head baseball coach of a small liberal arts college in North Carolina is under fire for extending a partial scholarship offer to — gasp! — a female pitcher. Of course hanging’s too good for him; I suggest the rack. Michael Bender says he’s received “several unpleasant emails” from alumni of Montreat College, and has had current players threaten to transfer because of his scholarship offer to Marti Sementelli, a pitcher from Birmingham High in Lake Balboa, Calif.

” ‘What kind of program am I running by offering a female a baseball scholarship?’ ” Bender said, recalling a sentiment in the email. “A lot of people question my integrity through all this just for the simple, ignorant, simpleton fact that they can’t look past that she’s a female.”

Bender insists Sementelli’s skills warrant a college chance regardless of her gender. He specifically likes her curveball and change-up that he described as a “palm ball.”

Asked whether the criticism was making him reconsider the offer, he said, “No, no, no, no, no, no. I’m going to stand tall.”

In March, Sementelli and Ghazaleh Sailors of San Marcos High in Santa Barbara, Calif., started against each other. That’s believed to be the first U.S. high school baseball game that had girls as the starting pitchers. Sementelli got the victory as Birmingham prevailed 6-1.

Among her other accomplishments was striking out Jimmy Kimmel on his ABC show in 2003. Here’s Sementelli in action:

Bender wouldn’t reveal the exact scholarship amount he offered but said, “For a school that costs $33,000, it’s chump change.”

The interesting part of the video to me is that Sementelli appears to have been pitching since she was, well, she says she started when she was two. Funny what can happen when you hand a girl a hardball instead of a softball and tell her, no, you don’t have to conform. Here’s to Marti and breaking down barriers. Get over it, guys.

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Scholarship offer to female pitcher brings heat for coach [Asheville Citizen-Times]