Ontario Basketball plans to drop ‘midget’ as age category classification

TORONTO — Starting next season, Ontario Basketball will drop the term ‘midget’ from its age category classifications and instead use more standard terms currently in use at the national and international levels.

Executive director Jason Jansson said the subject was brought to his attention this month by a member of the basketball community who has a child with dwarfism. Jansson said the organization’s board supported the change and plans will likely be formalized later this season.

The midget category will likely be called U15 (under-15) and major midget would go to U16 (under-16).

“Our commitment is to make it come together for next year because our season just started,” Jansson said. “So obviously there’s some promotional material that we want to change and there’s some rules and regulations manuals that we want to change.

“We just obviously haven’t really gotten it to that level just yet because everything came across my desk a couple weeks ago.”

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Canada Basketball, the sport’s governing body in the country, already uses numerical designators for age categories. The practice is also used by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA).

Canada Basketball president and chief executive officer Glen Grunwald said the subject will be raised at its annual general meeting in the spring.

“I think it’s better for all sorts of different reasons,” he said. “First of all, it’s more understandable of what age group we’re talking about. Second of all, if it’s offensive to someone then there’s no reason to use it.”

There was no immediate word on whether any other provinces or territories might follow Ontario’s lead.

Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press