DENVER (KDVR) — A major two week volleyball tournament hosted at the Colorado Convention center is catching heat after the tournament director turned away multiple moms with nursing babies.
“I let them know she is a nursing baby, so she has to stay with me, she has to eat,” Dixie Loveless, the owner of Mountain Peak Volleyball from Utah said.
Loveless and her team came out to this tournament, hosted by Colorado Crossroads. She stated on Friday she was able to bring her 4-month-old baby in when a security guard wasn’t sure of the policy. But come Saturday she was stopped at the front door by security.
“Dixie has a right to be in this building she is the head coach of this team she should have the right to be in there with her baby,” Chase Sessions, the father of one of the players on Loveless’s team stated.
Loveless said the tournament director, Kay Rogness didn’t really give her an exact reason on why her baby wasn’t allowed inside. Other mothers who were turned away stated they were told babies weren’t allowed in because of COVID but nothing was clarified.
“’I said ‘this is against the law.’ She said ‘this is my tournament, I make the rules,’” Tarah Olmstead, the Co-Owner of Juggernut Volleyball from Wheat Ridge said.
Olmstead stated she brought her twin babies in Friday for the tournament. She said after being there for awhile a security member approached her and asked her to leave. She said she was told she had five minutes to get off the premises and now she has to watch the tournament from home.
FOX31 and Channel 2 reached out to Rogness. Rogness answered the phone and told our reporter she had no comment.
Colorado Crossroads is a sanctioned event under USA Volleyball.
USA Volleyball released this statement:
“It has been brought to USA Volleyball’s attention that a club coach participating in the Colorado Crossroads tournament in Denver says she was prohibited from bringing her breastfeeding baby into the tournament. Colorado Crossroads is one qualifier event for the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship. Colorado Crossroads is not operated or controlled by USA Volleyball and its jurisdiction over the event is limited. USA Volleyball has expressed its disagreement with this decision to the tournament director and is encouraging the tournament to reverse the regulation.”
According to the state’s law: “A mother may breastfeed in any place she has a right to be.”
The tournament will continue into Sunday. Loveless stayed outside of the convention center until after 9:30 p.m once her team finished up playing their games.