Another less controversial, if delicate, issue of sex has also emerged: the clear admission by fervent women's sports supporters that boys are indeed stronger and faster.

''Sheryl Swoopes is great, but she's not going to challenge Michael Jordan,'' Bottke said as she leaned over a chain-link fence separating the all-weather track from the stands at Holyoke High School. ''Carl Lewis against Marion Jones? It's a joke. It's silly. We're different biologically. We have baby makers in our gender. They don't. Enough already. Put them on different teams.''

What's a Boy to Do?

The problem is, there are no boys' teams. Among the 18 states with field hockey programs, Massachusetts is one of only three in which boys compete at the high school level. (California and Maine are the others.) Men's field hockey thrives in other countries, but the sport has traditionally been played by girls in the United States. Either because of custom or state law, most American boys do not compete.

On one side of the debate here, boys are viewed as physically dominant, enough so that they dramatically alter competition for girls. Even for boys not as talented or as physical as their female teammates, some coaches and parents argue that they should not play because they would be displacing girls from teams, thereby reducing the opportunities afforded girls and women under Title IX, the 1972 legislation that prohibits discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds.

Just because girls are allowed to go out for the boys' football team, the critics say, does not mean that boys should be allowed to compete on the girls' field hockey team.

''Typically, adding a girl to a boys' team doesn't have the level of impact when a boy plays on a girls' team,'' said Janet Ryan, the mother of Megan Horrigan, an Amherst player. ''It's not a level playing field. We almost hate to say to our daughter, 'Boys are stronger and faster than you are,' but they are.''

But other coaches, parents and players maintain that without a comparable boys' team, boys have a right to play field hockey and do not significantly change the way the game is played.