JTA reports that the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools ruled yesterday that it will not reschedule the state basketball semi-finals to accommodate Sabbath observance by the team of the Robert M. Beren Academy of Houston, a Jewish day school. Currently Beren is scheduled to play Dallas Covenant on Friday night in one of the two semifinal games, with the finals scheduled for 2 p.m. the next day. Beren's head of school, Rabbi Harry Sinoff, said: "Just as TAPPS doesn’t schedule games on Sunday in deference to Christian teams, we expected that as a Jewish team, there would be grounds for a scheduling change."
UPDATE: CNN reported March 1 that TAPPS, threatened with the filing of a lawsuit to obtain a TRO if they did not, has rescheduled the Friday playoffs for Friday afternoon. Also it will rescheduled the finals to 8 p.m. Saturday if the Beren Academy team ends up in them.
