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Gordon Stringer said he could speak on behalf of his daughter Rowan when he urged Ottawa’s public school board not to pursue a ban on rugby.

“It would not be something she’d want,” said the father of the 17-year-old John McCrae student who died after suffering concussions playing the sport.

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Stringer, along with representatives of Rugby Canada, were responding at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Ottawa Carleton District School Board to a June 4 story in the Citizen that reported some trustees had suggested banning the sport from Ottawa’s high schools.

They asked instead that the board consider the 49 recommendations made by a jury from the inquest into Rowan’s death earlier this month, including a number aimed at making rugby safer in schools. The jury did not recommend that rugby be banned.

“If anyone has reason for removing rugby in high schools it would be me and my family. However, that’s never been part of our narrative,” said Stringer.