High School Hazing Page: Scroll Down for a Chronology of Selected High School Incidents.

Now covering incidents worldwide.

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maintained by Hank Nuwer, author of High School Hazing, The Hazing Reader, Wrongs of Passage, etc..                                     

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Wilson High School cases outside Buffalo set for June and July trials

Texas bill proposes to end hazing amnesty for those reporting hazing

A second high school student in New Mexico accepts guilty plea in violent physical hazing case

South Africa schools for boys report rampant, vicious hazing

Taft coach and employees cleared after investigation and back at work.

Robertson High School football player convicted and sentenced in hazing cases.

Robertson High School expels three football players and Wilson High sees serious charges lightened by prosecutor

Niagara Frontier residents express shock and woe after allegations surface that younger Wilson High School
students might have been hazed.  Baseball coach T. J. Baia and and an assistant were suspended from
coaching but remain in classroom. Superintendent Michael Wendt axes season. Some serious charges against students were
reduced, unlike the New Mexico case involving Robertson High School.

The Molalla High School basketball sexual hazing case has put five players in Oregon juvenile detention. Charges that
would have put one or more young men on the sexual offender listing were reduced.

molallaHazing Trial in Oregon

Robert Underwood must register for life as a sexual offender after rape and sexual hazing conviction in Ohio Tallmadge
High School football attack. Excerpt:  Special prosecutor Dan Riedl of the Ohio Attorney General's Office, who was appointed to handle the case, told Juvenile Judge Linda Tucci Teodosio before sentencing that Underwood ''picked up that straw and pushed it multiple times into the victim's rectum . . .'' ''That was an intentional act. It wasn't merely something that got out of hand. It was an intent to cause a real violation . . . of another person.''

University of Maine hazing study announced March 11; Utah student hands in guilty plea for sexual hazing; Colorado high school hit with serious hazing allegations (Roosevelt HS).

Florida school (Sebastian River High School) suspends athletes pending investigation; coach put on leave. Christopher
Columbus High School investigation
SCROLL DOWN PAGE FOR HIGH SCHOOL INCIDENTS SCHOOL by SCHOOL

Virden High School (IL) another in recent sexual hazing episodes

Tallmadge High School student allegedly held down and assaulted during hazing: Police say

Rape charges in connection with Ohio hazing incident


wrightgordie bailey
View movie for Robin Penn Wright of the Gordie Foundation HAZE, new hazing documentary

Utah school endures another hazing assault

Virden (IL) High School athletic hazing incident fails to reach law enforcement

Disorder in the Court: Sexual hazing case in Michigan brings explosion as parents of vctim and hazer clash

The East Carter/Lyon College Lawsuit:  See http://hazing.hanknuwer.com
From the East Carter basketball team:
ELEVEN Victims, Six ACCUSED HAZERS (AT LEAST ONE DENIAL FROM A PARENT),

benjamin stahl
Coach Benjamin "Benjie" Stahl: Gone from East Carter but not forgotten in lawsuit against East Carter and host Lyon College

HUGE DEVELOPMENT: LAWSUIT BLAMES TWO ATHLETIC DIRECTORS, TWO SCHOOLS AND A COACH FOR HAZING

______________________________________________________________________________________

 		1905-2009

Last update:
June 4, 2009.

The Wasington Post
on high school abuses

The Glenbrook Powderpuff Debacle


Movie HAZE:

Tips for parents

 Fraternity and sorority

An Interview with
Hank Nuwer on High
School hazing by
Jeff Wolfsberg

nuwer

Hazing & Bullying

Evaluating hazing severity

Disasters unmanaged, sports camps

Hazing News

VIDEO: see an amateur home video from the Gordie Foundation featuring Gordie Bailey
And one with Gordie fooling around on film with high school buddies to make a video (Gordie is in white sleeveless shirt)
A Chronology of Selected Incidents
 

Breaking news: Court sentences teen to five years in prison for hazing conviction. Must serve nine months.

Sept. 2007: Lewd hazing threat in Kansas; hazing in Cape Cod and Alabama.

Breaking news:  Team does things the right way.

This New Hampshire school treats all players equally: They "prove it" on the field,
not in some sophomoric display of hazing.

See also trials for high school hazing coming up in
1) Oregon and 2) Michigan.  In spite of Michigan suicide and Coopersville mess, Michigan Senate drops the
ball on hazing: Eppling

Older discussion chat on high school hazing but still relevant

Corry High School: In August 2007, a little school has big problem

All hazing cases hurt someone: These 25 are particularly repugnant

Edited by Hank Nuwer,
author of High School Hazing

Link for parents


1905
    Lima, Ohio school
    Hazing death alleged (not in chart)

    Sketchy facts in a newspaper story attributed the death of William Taylor,
    13, to a death by illness (pneumonia) allegedly caused when classmates   
    put snow down his back. [Editor’s note: I've always thought this case  
    needed far more fact to prove Taylor’s WAS a hazing death, and that it 
    may not fit today's
    accepted definition of hazing, although I don't want to minimize its   
    historic importance
    either. Perhaps some journalist or student out there may wish to examine
    the case closely. The death occurred on Feb. 10, 1905.]


    1909
    Denver, Colorado high schools
    High school fraternity/sorority flap (non-hazing)

    About 100 fraternity and sorority members were suspended after refusing to
    relinquish membership in these groups. (New York Times, Sept. 10, 1909)

    1913
    Denver, Colorado high schools
    High school expulsions for fraternity-sorority membership
    (non-hazing)

    Sixty students, including the son of Gov. Elias M. Ammons and daughter of
    Denver Major Henry J. Arnold were expelled for their membership in
    forbidden fraternities, sororities and secret societies. (New York Times,
    May 28, 1913)

    1917
    New York Military Academy (Cornwall, NY)
    Academy hazing alleged and denied

    Student Bertram Haigh contended his hearing loss in his right ear was a
    result of hazing. The school superintendent said Haigh's hearing loss was
    caused by an infection before he came to the academy.
 

b
James Brier, killed as he tried to avenge his honor by fighting members and other students following a Rotary Club-sponsored club demeaning hazing in which he failed to gain a membership bid..


   
    1920
    Waukegan High School (Illinois)
    Shooting during freshman hazing incident

    Carl Ambrose, 13, son of the commander of a local American Legion Post,
    whipped out a gun he'd been carrying when confronted by five masked
    sophomores bent on taking him with them. He had been subjected to intense
    high school freshman hazing. He fired a shot, wounding Theodore Lux, a
    sophomore. The other four pummeled Ambrose, until two girls, Elizabeth Lyon
    and Margaret Pulse, picked up the gun and began firing in the air to scare
    off the four.

    1924
    Brooklyn, NY
    Erasmus H.S.
    Sorority hazing

    Members burned Greek letters onto the foreheads of Helen Chapman and Helen 
    Steingester, using a solution of nitrate of silver. They also had crosses drawn with the 
    solution on  their backs.
    "The sorority has no connection with Erasmus HS,"
    the principal told the New York Times. "It is not an Erasmus Hall affair and there is
    nothing the school can do."

    1951
    Mobile, Alabama
    High School Fraternity initiation

    David M. Campbell, Jr., 15, was tarred and made to stand on an automobile
    running board in his shorts as the car whizzed away. He was one of four
    boys initiated. His hair was cut, he was pelted with stones and forced to
    eat rotten eggs, according to Time (March 5, 1951)

    1952
    Various hazing incidents
    Future Farmers of America

    University of Illinois Professor Lloyd J. Phipps revealed instances of
    physical and mental hazing in FFA groups in the May 1952 issue of The
    Agricultural Education Magazine.

   1952 - 1980 (To be added)


    1981
    Toms River, New Jersey
    Soccer team tradition of initiating first-year players

    Rookie soccer players said they were physically and vigorously pummeled
    during a
    long-tolerated school ritual known as "Freshman Kill Day."
 

    1981
    Wilmington High School (Massachusetts)
    Football physical hazing at camp
    Senior players allegedly urinated on younger players, a player revealed to
    the Boston Globe in an interview 11 years after the fact. (Oct. 17, 1992)

    1983
    Corning Union High School (California)
    Freshman Hazing

    A fistfight in a parking lot followed the hazing of a 14-year-old male by
    an 18-year-old student. The brother of the 14-year-old hit the hazer.

    1983 incident (1984 trial)
    Nogales High School (Arizona)
    athletic (baseball) hazing court case

    Seven junior varsity players from Nogales High School in Arizona said that
    they had been assaulted by older baseball players in the back of the team
    bus. Coaches were acquitted in a 1984 trial but had to give up their
    coaching positions.

    1984
    Hamden High School (New Haven, CT)
    High School Fraternity Hazing

    Although 17-year-old Todd Depino was paddled so hard and often that he was
    hospitalized and his skin was discolored, he refused to turn in the hazers.
    Another youth suffered similar hazing brutality. (March 9, 1984, UPI
    regional story)

    1985
    Athens High School (Georgia)
    Band Hazing Allegations

    Band director Dan Havely ordered students to end hazing initiations after
    reports of corporal punishment such as paddling became public.

    1985
    Lowell High School (Massachusetts)
    Physical hazing, hockey
 

    After two hockey players suffered serious injuries, the school
    superintendent merely banned
    practices run by hockey team captains until the victim's parents protested,
    prompting five
    suspensions of veteran players.

    1985
    Cathedral High School (Los Angeles, CA)
    Hazing Week (not in chart)

    In an article on an averted shutdown of the high school, reporter Marita
    Hernandez mentioned in passing the school's tradition of Hazing Week. (Los
    Angeles Times, Dec. 4, 1985)

    1985
    West Hempstead High School (NY)
    Unsanctioned Fraternity, Hazing

    Steve Naso, 18, pleaded guilty to severely paddling John Isaacson, 16,  in
    the first test of New York state's hazing law. Other states such as South
    Carolina have since had problems using hazing laws to cover high school
    incidents because of imprecise wording of the state statutes.

    1985-1986 season
    Scotts Valley (CA)
    Water Polo hazing

    With the assistance of the  Committee to Halt Useless College Killings, a
    Scotts Valley anti-hazing
    activist fought hazing after his
    son was subjected to physical and emotional hazing. He charged that water
    polo hazing could be
    tracked seven years. He said there were substantial gains, but he wanted
    hazing fully eliminated.
    (Files, CHUCK, Sept. 8, 1986)
  

    1986
    Laramie High School (Wyoming)
    Branding for unauthorized club (possibly gang)

    Students unwillingly were branded with a livestock brand and coat hanger
    bent into an S. In the tradition, 3 seniors selected 3 sophomores to
    receive the brand.

    1987
    Union City High School (TN)
    Freshman hazing

    Five students were convicted of assault (probation assigned by court) after
    freshman claimed they had been beaten as part of an initiation.
 

    October 1987    

    Thorndale High School
    Thorndale, Texas
    Sexual Hazing (sodomizing charges reduced)
   

    Four athletes accepted a guilty plea of Class B misdemeanor hazing in an incident  
    where a plastic bottle was jammed in a younger 
    player’s anal cavity to initiate him as a junior varsity player. Each hazer agreed to
    perform 80 hours of community service for the   
    reduced charge

    1988
    Medford High School (MA)
    Football camp hazing

    Paul McGaffigan revealed on WBZ-TV that he'd been forced to run naked with
    a cracker in his
    buttocks as part of a traditional hazing game.
 
 

    1988
    Holmdel High School (New Jersey)
    Improper Touching alleged
    Football team

    Football players were alleged to have been coerced into removing clothing
    and playing a game
    of Twister. The event was videotaped. The Bergen County Record on Nov. 12,
    1989, said that "some coaches reportedly were disciplined."
   

    1988
    Watertown High School (Massachusetts)
    Football camp hazing

    Numerous hazing incidents occurred at football camp. Three coaches and five
    players received
    suspensions. Some events involved humiliation and stripping and having a
    player sit in urine. Watertown player had toparticipate in a "cookie run," in which boys
    stripped, placed cookies in their buttocks,   
    and raced across a field. If the cookie fell out, the player would have to eat it.
    (The News Tribune, October 7, 1988, and many more articles available)

    1989
    Lyndhurst, New Jersey (high school)
    Hazing
    Football team

    Leslie Weaver of the Bergen County Record reported that a high school
    sophomore football players was coerced into improper touching of another player
    while a large group (20-30) of   players watched. The reporter wrote that the incident   
    away from school took
    place at a Millersville, Pennsylvania football camp. The board of education responded
    by tightening academic requirements for players and banning secret societies. Hazing
    already had been prohibited, according to a Bergen County Record article (June 6,
    1990) written by Andrew Wolff. Wolff also reported that two players were kicked
    off the team and two were given a lesser punishment.

    1989
    Pierce City High School (Missouri)
    Football initiation

    In 1989, two of my graduate students interviewed students Eric Hartley and
    Maynard Moudy at the Future Farmers of America convention in Kansas City, Mo. In addition
    to talking about FFA hazing (in which they said agriculture teacher, co-FFA adviser, and
    varsity football defensive coach Jeff Martin watches over to keep things under control),
    they talked about varsity football hazing at Pierce City High.
    On the first rainy day of practice, players can
    willingly wallow face-first in mud while grunting like pigs, or the juniors
    and seniors get to throw them in the slop. Hartley said that basketball players have a tradition, on
    a player's birthday, of forming a gantlet and slugging the player in the stomach. If the
    player with a birthday hits back or protects his stomach, he goes back to the start of the line. (Source:
    "Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing" by Hank Nuwer)

    1989
    Central Beurden High School (Kansas)
    Wrestling initiation

    At the 1989 Future Farmers of America (FFA)  convention, Darrin Rierson
    said that no illicit initiations were required.
    However, he did tell interviewer Steve Jensen that the school wrestling
    team sometimes swirl the heads of  rookies in a toilet, then flush it.

    Jensen (from tape): Who usually does that to you?

    Rierson: Upperclassmen.

    Jensen: Upperclassmen do that? Now, do the coaches ever know about this?

    Rierson: Well, they know about it. Usually they say, "We're gonna have an
    initiation." Theywon't tell us about it. They kinda just walk out for a little bit, y'know?

    Jensen: ...Do they actually know what the upperclassmen are gonna do?"

    Rierson: Yeah, more or less.

    Jensen: Yeah? They do?

    Rierson: They just kind of let it happen.


    

    1989
    Loris High School (SC)
    FFA Initiation

    Hazing involved electrical shock, coating people in objectionable
    substances, and fooling them into thinking they were touching taboo objects.

    1989
    Eastern High School (Green County, Indiana)
    FFA Initiation

    Not only had a son been initiated under the adviser in 1988, but so had the
    father who had bananas stuffed into his nose until he developed a nosebleed.

    1989
    Cissna Park High School (Shabbona, Illinois)
    Mild FFA Initiation

    Recruits hands get dipped in green paint.

    1989
    McLean County High School (Kentucky)
    FFA initiation

    The FFA stopped an initiation in which recruits pulled down their pants and
    sat on a block of ice.

    1989
    Pierce City High School (Missouri)
    Mental Hazing
    FFA
    Recruits are made to think they are mashing cow excrement which gets wafted
    in front of their noses.

    1989
    Scottsville High School (Kentucky)
    Baseball initiation

    Student Danny Oliver said he played for his baseball team. The initiation
    he experienced was getting held down while a player shaved leg hair. His coach said he would
    step in if things got too bad but did not stop the mild initiation.  Several other clubs and band
    had no hazing-you just joined and were in, said Oliver.

    1989
    Nodaway-Holt High School (Missouri)
    NO sports initiation; positive sports program

    Student Andy Sportsman said at an FFA convention (see above for details)
    that football, basketball and track coaches held annual meetings during respective seasons
    to tell players all rules. Players were told initiations were forbidden and against the rules.
    

    1990
    Brockton High School (Massachusetts)
    Track team

    A rookie member claimed younger players had their underwear torn on bus and
    had traces of  excrement rubbed on their faces and/or were made to eat pubic hair. Ten  
    members of the Brockton High School team were   
    suspended from school for apparently hazing new team members. The incident  
    involved the slapping of students and the clipping  of
    at least one student's pubic hair. No one was injured, authorities said.

    1990
    Georgetown Preparatory School (Montgomery County, VA)
    New student hazing

    A student was expelled for butting, a practice in which a new student is
    tricked into putting his face against an older student's buttocks. The
    father of the student expelled blasted the school, calling his son a
    sacrificial guinea pig and saying the practice was widespread at the
    institution. (The Washington Post, January 15, 1991)
 

    1990
    Whitehall-Coplay High School (Pennsylvania)
    Football

    A rookie suffered a concussion after being beaten by twin lines of veterans.

    1990
    North High School (Denver, Colorado)
    ROTC hazing

    A 16-year-old girl received hospital care after being dropped on her head
    in a hazing incident. (Rocky Mountain News, October 17, 1990)
 
 

    1991
    Ontario High School (Oregon)
    Baseball team male-on-male violence

    Police ended a one-year investigation into the sodomizing of four rookie
    players. Police said six
    veterans sodomized the four.

    1992
    Wilmington High School (Massachusetts)
    Football physical hazing at camp

    Police and administrators came under fire when some references to more
    serious types of
    physical assault were deleted from a written investigation report. Victims
    in the case claimed
    they were subjected to improper touching and physical assault, reported The
    Boston Globe  (October 17, 1992)

    1992
    Johnson Creek High School (WI)
    Hazing allegations cleared against wrestlers (in chart for taping)

    Two wrestlers admitted taping a victim to punish his missing a meet but
    argued successfully in court that they had threatened to insert a mop in a
    victim's rectum, but that they had not done it because a wrestler argued
    against it.
 

    1992
    Lodi (New Jersey) High School
    Physical hazing
    Financial settlement, Football

Anthony Erekat, a member of the football squad, was duct-taped by the arms and legs at   a football camp run by the team's coaches. He had his hair hacked off and had players spread feces and peanut butter over his body. Fourteen players eventually pleaded guilty and were ordered to perform 50 hours each of community service. They also were suspended for the season's first game but then were allowed to play when someone realized that the opening game was against a tough rival. The players served their suspension during a game against a lesser opponent. Erekat received a financial settlement.


    1992
    Sunnyside High School (Washington)
    Hazing
    Conviction

    A young man, 15, claimed that he had been penetrated with a mop handle
    during an attack by
    several wrestlers. He suffered internal injuries. After plea bargaining,
    Richard Melendrez, entered a guilty plea to second-degree reckless endangerment.
 

    1992
    Clintondale (Michigan) High School
    softball hazing

    Two female players removed a freshman teammate's ponytail with a knife.

    1992
    Golf club (Indiana)

    A student of mine, Mark Patterson, wrote an essay in which he disclosed his
    regret at unintentionally breaking the arm of a new caddie when Patterson and another
    veteran caddie put a broomstick between the legs of the rookie to give him a ride. The item was
    listed in "High School Hazing" with Mark's permission.


    1993
    Sky View High School (Utah)
    Hazing and intimidation
    Football team

    School Superintendent Larry Jensen cancelled the last game of the football
    season and eliminated a playoff berth after a player charged that he had been taped
    nude to a table, mocked, and then subjected to having his female date see him in this state.
    The player, Brian Seamons, won court approval to go ahead in his
    efforts to sue some of those he believes responsible for the incident.

    1993
    Glenbard West High School (DuPage, Illinois)
    Hazing policy following physical hazing
    Sports cheering squad

    Administrators wrote a strict anti-hazing policy. The policy followed the
    physical hazing of Topperettes who were covered with bleach and other objectionable
    substances, plus talked into simulating sex acts, according to research reported by reporters Cheryl
    Thompson and Ted Gregory (Chicago Tribune).

    1993
    Haddon Township H,S. (New Jersey)
    Football Hazing Reforms (not on chart)

    Faced with hazing rumors they could not pin down, Haddon authorities
    instituted a hazing policy.

    1994
    Newbury Park High School (Thousand Oaks, CA)
    Freshman hazing

    After a skit went too far, 10 seniors were disciplined for spreading
    condiments on freshman females and making some wear dog collars and
    leashes to be taken around the school like dogs. (Los Angeles Times, 
    November 13, 1994)

    1994
    Balboa High School (California)
    ROTC hazing alleged

    A young cadet claimed he and two others had been battered by a student
    officer and others during a beating ritual called the ranks. Allegations
    were made that the ritual had been repeated for years. (The San Francisco
    Examiner, March 5, 1994)

    1994
    Church-sponsored Summer Camp
    International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
    Physical hazing

    A young boy who sued a camp supervisor after suffering a back injury and
    post-traumatic stress disorder was awarded $12,500 gross and $10,625 in
    Judge Ernest George Williams's court. The defendant unsuccessfully claimed
    that the hazing was a prank. Case No.BC 119 839  Date of Verdict: 10/20/96

    1994
    West High School (New Hampshire)
    Freshmen hazing

    Stories conflicted on how badly injured was a freshman who was given a
    wedgie as part of an initiation, according to the Union Leader.

    1994
    Shawnee Mission East High School (Kansas)
    Soccer player hurt in school initiation custom (class hazing)

    The Kansas City Star (September 3, 1994) reported that the arms of two boys
    (one a soccer player who missed some games) were broken in a physical hazing ("hill
    rolling) ritual. The principal made an announcement that the custom was forbidden after the
    injuries occurred.

    1994
    Shoshone High School (Idaho)
    Freshman hazing

    A student who refused to let himself be hazed was tormented by older
    students. The student had little support. The Lewiston Morning Tribune
    noted that the school board operates a lottery to match hazers with those
    hazed.

 

     1995
     Maysville High School (MI)
     Over-reaction by coach

    The school was sued by a player who said his coach overeacted by having team members
    pile on him to teach a lesson. The player was injured. The coach was let go in 1998 after
    other incidents occurred, including his hitting an assistant. The coach said a stroke made it hard
    for him to control his temper.

    1995
    Alameda County, California
    Boy Scout hazing allegations (death)

    The parents of a 12-year-old male claimed that their son was killed after
    he swerved to get away from older Scouts who were hazing and intimidating
    him. (Ferguson vs. United Charter Service/Papedis/Lawrence)

    1995
    High School in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.
    Football Team, No action taken in initiation (on chart)

    Two seniors on the football team were not charged by police or punished by
    the school after asking two younger players to take a lap around the playing field without
    pants. Family members asked the police and school to let the participants settle the
    problem themselves.
    (See The Record, September 6, 1995)

    1995
    Mitchell High School (Colorado Springs, CO)
    Freshman hazing

    Students were kidnapped during Hell Week, tied down, and coated with smelly
    substances. There were 12 students charged.

    1995
    Roseville High School (MN)
    Sophomore Hazing

    As many as 100 seniors, many that had been drinking, overpowered male and
    female sophomores. Allegations included charges that bottles were broken
    over the heads of some students.
    Student Nikki Cosentino, an actress who played in "Grumpier Old Men" with
    Sophia Loren, alleged that seniors urinated on people.

    1995
    South High School (Minneapolis, MN)
    Freshman Hazing

    A ninth-grader suffered a burn wound on the cheek during a physical hazing
    incident, according to the Star Tribune. Fifteen students were suspended,
    although the school cautioned that some rumors about what occurred had been
    exaggerated.

    1995
    Fort Vancouver High School
    Band Hazing

    Students were given community service, but successfully fought original
    suspensions, in a band hazing incident that divided the school community. A
    victim was given an $8,000 settlement check.
 

    1995
    Wisconsin Heights High School (Wisconsin)
    Athletic hazing (football)

    Five students were suspended for hazing rookies, including the taping of a
    player to a goalpost,
    a ritual that sometimes gets reported by writers covering  pro football
    teams. (See Capital
    Times, October 19 and October 30, 1995)

    1995
    Parkway High School (Chesterfield, MO story)
    Football hazing

    A rookie player accused two football players of assaulting him, leading to
    charges placed by Chesterfield police, according to the St. Louis
    Post-Dispatch.

    1995
    South Shore Vocational Technical High School (NH)
    Freshman hazing

    Several freshmen complained about beatings as part of a traditional high
    school initiation involving culinary arts students, according to the
    Patriot Ledger.
 

    1996
    Duxbury High School (Massachusetts)
    Baseball initiation

    Players were caught shoplifting items from a store while dressed in varsity
    and JV uniforms as
    part of a team tradition. The team forfeited 13 games as part of its
    punishment. (New York
    Times, May 5, 1996)

    1996
    Simi Valley High School
    Parent sanctioned initiation rituals (not on chart)

    The Los Angeles Times (Sept. 2, 1996) ran a feature on parent-approved,
    non-criminal band member hazing that included kidnappings, silly costumes,
    and then a non-hazing breakfast.
 

    1996
    Azle High School (Texas)
    Hazing (including cheerleaders/volleyball team members)

    Two students were suspended and others apologized after a traditional
    initiation got out of hand,
    but fell short of qualifying as criminal hazing. The school acted swiftly
    to take action.
    (Star-Telegram, Sept. 9. 1996)

    1996
    Midland Lee High School (Texas)
    Cheerleader allegations

    A young woman charged that she had clothing ruined with substances in an
    unauthorized initiation.
    (The Houston Chronicle, Oct. 26, 1996)
 
 

    1996
    Salt Fork Storm (Jamaica High School and Catlin High School)
    Alleged physical hazing
    Football team

    Joshua Lock, 14, told the Chicago Tribune (August 30, 1996) that his
    lacerated spleen was
    the result of  hazing by an older player (and part of a pattern of hazing
    by older players).

    1996
    Buffalo Grove High School (Illinois)
    Physical hazing
    General (male/female) student body (includes football team members but on
    chart as class hazing)

    A physical hazing supposedly got out of hand when overzealous bystanders
    lost control, according to some 20 older students who hazed 17 first-year students by
    spraying them with urine, cat litter, and hair-remover. (See Chicago Sun-Times, October 10,
    1996)
 

    1996
    West Warwick High School (Rhode Island)
    Football Incident

    Whatever happened during an incident involving West Warwick football
    players is unknown, because the school district refused to tell a reporter, but hazing was
    entered into procedures after it occurred. (See
    October 8, 1996, The Providence Bulletin.
 

    1996
    Walla Walla High School (Washington)
    Football hazing

    Eight players were suspended from the team after a hazing incident at a
    Boise training camp saw six first-year players humiliated with improper bodily contact and
    having parts of their bodies coated with toothpaste. (The [Bend, Oregon] Bulletin, September 1,
    1996). Fourteen players were reprimanded for not speaking out about the hazing they saw.
    Parents of the hazed students praised the school for its handling of the incident.

    1996
    St. Edward Catholic School (Chicago, Illinois)
    Hazing allegations
    Football Team

    Five seventh-grade football players said they were bruised following a
    paddling by eight
    eighth-grade players. "Isn't no big deal," the father of one eight grader
    told Fox TV News in Chicago.

    1996
    Hillcrest High School (Utah)
    Football hazing

    Five upperclass members of the football team were kicked off the team and
    suspended from
    school for hazing.

    1996
    Hempfield Area School District (Pennsylvania)
    Football hazing
    Injury

    Nine veteran players admitted involvement after a sophomore football rookie
    was injured
    during traditional hazing. The school passed a hazing policy after the
    incident.

    1996
    Midland High School (Houston, Texas)
    Cheerleader initiation

    MHS cheerleading newcomer had chocolate syrup poured all over her school
    clothes.

    1996
    Santa Fe High School
    Freshman Hazing

    The school contended with reports of hair cutting and kidnapping during
    traditional Homecoming initiations.

    1996
    Alexander  High School (Ohio)
    Football hazing
    No contest, conviction

    The Columbus Dispatch, February 15, 1997, reported that football team
    captain Travis A.
    Hawk, 18, of Athens,  "pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of
    hazing  involving
    freshman teammates in the locker room showers in late October." Hawk was
    given a suspended sentence and $50 fine, plus community service requirement.

    1996
    Thorndale High School (Washington)
    Football hazing

    A junior-high player was brutalized with a plastic bottle by older players.
    The group apologized to
    the victim in juvenile court. (The Houston Chronicle, Sept. 23, 1998)

    1996
    Mentor High School (Ohio)
    Choral group hazing

    A student complained that he'd been paddled with a board.

    1996
    Northwestern High School (York, SC)
    Rebel social club hazing alleged

    A student, 17, charged that he was injured as the result of ingesting a
    "caustic" substance while blindfolded.

    1996
    Lamar High School (Arlington, Texas)
    Sophomore hazing

    Nine older students were charged in the brutal hazing of five sophomores in
    an incident where alcohol played a role. Students were forced to strip and
    were sprayed with urine and excrement.

    1996
    Azle High School (Texas)
    Freshman hazing

    Two students received a three-day suspension for intimidating new students
    and marking their foreheads with an "f" to signify frosh, according to the
    Star-Telegram.

    1996
    Sam Houston High School (Arlington, Texas)
    Initiation voluntarily ended (not on chart)

    The school principal put a stop to "Howdy Day," saying that upperclassmen
    no longer were allowed to initiate the group below them. The school acted
    after a brutal hazing at a neighboring high school.

    1996
    Clark Central High School (Athens, GA)
    High School Sorority Hazing

    Sigma Alpha Phi sorority was banned from the high school after an initiate
    was injured by being coerced into allowing red ants to bite her.

    1997
    Santa Fe High School (NM)
    Freshman Hazing

    A freshman said she was branded with a cigarette lighter against her will
    during Demon Pride Week.

   1997
   University of Oklahoma
   Female soccer team
   Hazing

    A player left school (and later sued) after she charged that her coaches led an initiation that
    included simulation of oral sex. See http://espn.go.com/otl/hazing/wednesday.html

    1997
    Merton Intermediate School (WI)
    Playground incident

    While technically better described as horseplay than hazing, an incident in
    which five boys gave another a wedgie resulted in national news when angry
    parents vilified the school principal for calling police, saying she
    overreacted. Those giving a wedge ended up doing community service. (not on
    chart).
 

    1997
    Essex High School (Vermont)
    Gymnastics hazing

    Four new girls had to eat bananas placed in the pants of males known to
    older cheerleaders. An outraged victim, Lizzie Murtie, became an activist
    following the incident. She and her parents hope to get a hazing law passed
    in Vermont.

    1997
    Wauwatosa East High School
    Soccer hazing

    Suspensions for hazing were imposed on key members of the soccer team for
    hazing. Losing key players who were punished eventually wrecked the team's
    number one ranking.
    

    1997

    Canyon High School Texas

    New Braunfels, Texas

    A father charged that his son was penetrated with a coat hanger during an attack by veteran football players, but a police      
    investigation failed to corroborate the claim (and lesser charges were placed at the time). A coach resigned following a board      
    meeting but later coached
    again at the college level.  San Antonio Express, May 1, 1997.

    1997
    Holmdel High School
    Soccer hazing

    More than 200 people attended a Board of Education meeting after hazing
    reports surfaced.
    Many were angry that someone had complained about hazing. "Soccer is not a
    sport of the timid,"
    a mother told the board, according to the Asbury Press (Nov. 7, 1997).

    1997
    Berlin High School (Berlin, CT)
    Freshman hazing

    Police conducted an investigation into the 1997 initiation after it was
    carried out on a farmer's property near Middletown, CT., according to the
    Hartford Courant. Freshmen were covered with manure, syrup, vinegar, oil
    and other substances.
 
 

    1997
    Old Lyme High School (Connecticut)
    Soccer
    Hazing

    Two male soccer players were suspended from school after a player reported
    that his pants
    had been sprayed with a chemical substance and lit in a hazing practice
    known as "butt
    burning."

    .

    1997
    South Windsor High School
    Hockey hazing
    Hazing

    The school looked into allegations that new players were initiated and
    coerced into jumping off a ten-foot wall. Nine older players received
    suspensions. An editorial writer for the Hartford Courant blasted the
    practice. Parents of rookie players defended the hazing tradition.

    1997
    Little Chute High School
    Freshman hazing

    Two students were abducted and one was injured in a kidnapping scheme as
    part of an initiation.

    1997
    Westlake High School (California)
    Wrestling team
    Sexual assault alleged

    Officials canceled the wrestling team's season after allegations surfaced
    in a newspaper that
    some older wrestlers jabbed buttocks of players with mop handle. In October
    1999, a
    conference on press ethics said that these initial reports of hazing were
    exaggerated and
    questioned whether the newspaper was overzealous.  Seven wrestlers were
    suspended.

    1997
    Rancho Bernardo  High School (California, Poway School District)
    Physical hazing and sexual assault
    Junior varsity baseball player

    After a rookie baseball player was sodomized with an object in the locker
    room, he settled for $675,000 with the district, according to
    the San Diego Union-Tribune which went to uncommon lengths to get the
    school district to reveal any details at all. Court records showed that the attack was part of
    a six-year pattern of assault in several sports and was deeply entrenched in school athletics,
    according to the newspaper.
 

    1997
    Highlands Park High School (Colorado)
    Hazing
    Football team

    Highlands suspended seven players after allegations surfaced that hazing
    occurred at a football camp.
 

    1997
    Joseph High School (Oregon)
    Football players and male-on-male violence

     The Vancouver Columbian (September 28, 1997)  reported the suspension of
    two athletes following an attack at a football team picnic.  About 12 players
    attacked a 10th grade player while riding in the back of a pickup driven by
    a coach. One player
    rubbed his exposed genitals against the boys skin, and another forced the
    boy to touch the older
    player's genitals.

    1997
    Santa Fe High School (New Mexico)
    Freshman Hazing

    A 14-year-old boy nearly died of an alcohol overdose that boosted his BAC
    to well over .30, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. School officials
    ignored at least six phoned interview requests for my book "High School
    Hazing." The New Mexican said the boy was forced to eat a raw egg and
    encouraged to consume liquor. But another boy hazed at the time said peer
    pressure, not force, made the other youth drink. Newspaper accounts said
    the student was taped and had epithets scrawled on his body with markers.
    Stunned by repeated physical hazings and even a life-threatening alcohol
    initiation, administrators and coaches have begun speaking out. Steve Baca,
    varsity football coach, called the hazers "knuckleheads" in an interview
    with the Santa Fe New Mexican (October 5, 1996).
 
 

    1997
    Overland High Schools (Cherry Creek Schools, Colorado)
    Freshman hazing

    Principal John Buckner said he was mistaken for not taking strong action
    after freshmen boys were covered in pillowcases and hit by older students.
    (Denver Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 15, 1997)

    1998
    Culdesac H.S./Lapwai School District  (Idaho)
    Football Initiations alleged -- Suit filed in an Idaho court in 2000

    The Lapwai School District and eight employees have been sued following
    initiations which two
    victims and their parents described as "assaults" and mock "rapes." The
    next game between the two schools was a basketball game, and school
    authorities voted to cancel the contest, according to the Lewiston Morning
    Tribune. A coach narrowly escaped prison for allegedly doing little or
    nothing to stop the event.
 

    1998
    Roosevelt High School (Iowa)
    Hazing-like rituals involving alcohol and peer pressure (class)

    Reporter Lynn Okamoto described a "Big Pal, Little Pal" ritual in which
    older students invite younger students out to drink.
 
 

    1998
    Scituate High School (Massachusetts)
    Football player suspended in unusual interpretation of hazing
    (not on chart)

    A football player who dropped a young man on his face, requiring stitches
    and dental care for the
    victim, was suspended from the football team even though the action was
    intended as a prank and
    was not connected to the team. (The Patriot Ledger, October 30, 1998)
 
 

    1998
    Mead High School (Spokane, Washington)
    Female soccer players
    Initiation

    A local paper quoted a student who said soccer players were taped to trash
    cans.

    1998
    Burrillville High School (Rhode Island)
    Annual freshman initiation ended (not on chart)

    A school principal ended a traditional freshman initiation at a Welcome
    Dance. In years past, students kissed the feet of an upperclass president
    and were sprayed with water and various substances while wearing old
    clothes. This was under some control by adults, but the school ended the
    tradition amid a handful of complaints.
 
 

    1998
    Leonia High School (New Jersey)
    Football team "bullying" (included in chart)

    When older football players ganged up on a younger player, school officials
    termed the episode "bullying," and definitely not hazing. In my book, "Wrongs of
    Passage," I cite several
    instances in which college administrators show the same reluctance to use
    the term hazing. In a positive step, Leonia officials drafted a strong anti-hazing policy that
    athletes sign.

    1998
    Williamsville High School  (Illinois, Springfield area)
    Freshman hazing

    Seven freshmen males were paddled with paddles made in shop class. The
    hazers said the movie "Dazed and Confused" inspired them.

    1998
    Deerfield High School  (Dane County, Wisconsin)
    Baseball team hazing

    Lured by a staged p.a. announcement, a rookie baseball player came to the
    team locker room. He was jumped and taped to a bench.  A student urged the
    others to urinate on the boy, and he unzipped his pants, but the other
    players dissuaded him. Other baseball players had been initiated
    previously. "You can either go on the bench the easy way or the hard way,"
    said team captain William Blomker, 18, according to the Wisconsin State
    Journal (Feb. 10, 1998). A Deerfield school superintendent ordered the team
    to undergo an awareness class.

    1998
    Eleanor McMain Magnet Secondary School (Orleans Parish, La.)
    High School Fraternity Hazing

    The mother of Ashton Harper, 14, said her son was "close to death" and
    suffered kidney damage during a "crossover" initiation ceremony in the
    school. He was grabbed while painting lockers as part of a fraternity
    service project, the mother said. (The Times-Picayune, May 1, 1998)

    1998
    Interlake High School
    Incoming Freshman Hazing

    Seven eight graders were hazed by 10 high school students. None were
    physically hurt.

    1998
    Severna Park High School (Millersville and Severna Park, MD)
    Pre-freshman Hazing

    Four high school students were charged with assault in a paddling attack on
    eighth graders at a bus stop near the end of school in June.
 
 
 

    1998
    Mesa Mountain View High School
    Coaches suspended
    Football
    Mesa school board suspended the new head football coach and two assistant
    coaches for not abolishing the practice of players administering pink
    bellies that went back to the 1970s
    here, according to the Arizona Republic.

    1998
    Palm Harbor University High School (Florida)
    Baseball
    Physical hazing

    Five baseball players punched rookies on the team bus. One or more  put a
    burning ointment
    onto one rookie's bare backside.  Players received light punishment, 3-5
    day suspensions. (St.
    Petersburg Times, March 11, 1998)

    1998
    Thorndale High School (Texas)
    Football
    Sexual assault

    Four football players pleaded guilty to misdemeanor hazing after injuring a
    rookie's anus and
    delicate organs with a soda pop bottle.
 

    1999
    Great Neck South High School (New York)
    (Athletic hazing)

    A player was roughed up during a hazing, according to Newsday.

    1999
    North Branch School District (Michigan)
    Basketball hazing
    Saginaw State camp

    Two coaches were fired, a player was expelled, and six players were
    suspended after
    terroristic-type hazing practices occurred at an away camp.

    1999
    Middletown, N.J.
    Football camp at Wagner College (Staten Island, N.J.)
    Alleged head shaving and physical hazing

    Prosecutors said they lacked evidence to support claims by a 13-year-old
    Middletown
    boy who said he had been hazed at a non-mandatory football camp this
    summer. The boy's parents have filed a civil suit.
 

    1999
    Kalaheo H.S. (Hawaii)
    Female soccer team

    Two coaches were suspended after girls were made to run around a field in
    underclothing.

    1999
    Prospect High School  (Illinois)
    Football team horseplay/hazing flap

    A freshman football player said he had endured hazing. Veterans called it
    horseplay.
 

    1999
    Stevenson H.S. (Illinois)
    Football hazing

    Officials suspended four players for so-called atomic situps that involve
    ridicule and humiliation.
    Sports Illustrated ran an article "In Praise" of such hazing and failed to
    print letters from parents
    whose children had been injured or tormented in hazing incidents. Two
    17-year-olds entered a guilty reduced plea and were fined and apologized to
    the victim.

    1999
    Raoul Wallenberg Traditional Alternative High School (California)
    Baseball
    Sexual assault investigation

    The San Francisco Examiner reported that school officials and police
    authorities are
    investigating a possible "sexual assault by high school baseball players on
    younger
    Teammates while at a tournament."  The coach was fired immediately.

    1999
    Gulfport High School (Mississippi)
    Fraternity under-aged drinking (non-hazing, not on chart)

    A Phi Kappa National Fraternity outing included a beer bash arranged by
    a Mississippi high school youth, leading to charges against 59 individuals
    for alcohol violations and room trashing. Several adults were among those
    charged, according to the Times-Picayune .
 

    1999
    Aiee High School (Hawaii)
    Soccer   (charges filed)

    A player was assaulted by six teammates after refusing to let them haze him.
 

    1999
    McAlester High School (Oklahoma)
    Football physical hazing
    Injury

    A young player suffered a head injury after he was jumped by teammates in a
    locker room
    hazing by teammates. It was the second hazing injury involving the football
    team in two years.
    The incident angered the mother who demanded that the football team be shut
    down, just as
    fraternity chapters are closed when members are caught hazing.

    1999
    William Tennent High School (Pennsylvania)
    Wrestling Hazing

    Matt Nice, 15, was hit hard by teammates as part of his initiation,
    resulting in the suspensions of seven hazers.

    1999
    Hinsdale H.S (IL)
    Baseball hazing

    Three players faced battery charges after forcibly cutting a player's hair.

    1999
    Neshaminy High School (Langhorne, PA)
    Baseball team hazing

    Elsewhere it is called an "atomic situp," and here a"power sit-up." But the
    technique and purpose is the same-to fool a blindfolded rookie into doing a
    situp so that he views or comes into contact with an older teammate's bare
    buttocks, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.

  1999
  Ellicott City High School (Maryland)
  Soccer Hazing

 Rookies on the junior high school squad had balls kicked at their rumps by veterans on
 the senior squad in a foolish practice called "butts up."

1999
  Cato-Meridian High School (New York)
  Football Hazing

 Then football coach Brett P. Fingland punished players for hazing. He currently is conducting a hazing survey as part of work required for a graduate degree at LeMoyne College.
 

    1999
    North Thurston School District (Washington)
    Study underway

    A study on student behaviors resembling hazing and other related behaviors
    is being conducted
    at North Thurston School District in Washington. The school had a football
    team hazing
    incident.

Stow, Ohio
Wrestling allegations

Chip Stewart, a young wrestler with learning disabilities, said he was poked in the buttocks
region with a broom handle, verbally abused, and abandoned while taped.
Civil litigation in 2000 (incident occurred earler)
2000

    2000
    Trumbull High School (CT)
    Wrestling team

    One new wrestler (a special education student) was injured, and several
    others allegedly were
    hazed, at Trumbull H.S. Six wrestlers face charges. Although police refused
    to identify charges
    publicly, a lawyer said the special ed student was forced to suffer
    indignities, including the insertion
    of a plastic knife into his rectum. Eight were suspended. Daniel R.
    Scinto Jr., 18, Jeremy Dommu,  18, and Christopher Ricci, 16, were in March
    2000 arraigned in
    Bridgeport Superior Court on criminal-assault charges.
 
 

    2000
    Newtown High School (CT)
    Wrestling Hazing

    A practice called "swirlies" (dunking a rookie's head in a toilet and
    flushing it) led to the forfeiture
    of four matches by the wrestling team.
 

    2000
    Fort Madison High School (Iowa)
    Minor infractions admitted

    The  Des Moines Register reported that school officials said that an
    investigation found that a
    wrestler was taunted and taped by older players, refuting a claim by Fort
    Madison (Iowa) high
    school nurse who earlier alleged that a
     "rookie" wrestler was sodomized with a marker by teammates. The school
    ruled that this initiation was not hazing, pointing out yet again the
    difficulty in getting administrators to
    see that criminal and non-criminal types of hazing exist.
 

    2000
    Absegami (NJ) HS
    Wrestling initiation

    Labe Black, a wrestler arrested for making a young wrestler chug alcohol as
    part of an initiation,
    was allowed by the school district to win a championship. Now he faces a
    hearing to see if he
    may be punished, and he may have to forfeit one or more wins if the hearing
    goes against him.

     2000
      Beachwood High School (Ohio)
    Class hazing

    Several juniors may be charged with of unlawful restraint for hazing
    freshmen and taking pictures
    of their activities.

    2000
    Nazareth High School (Pennsylvania)
    Athletic hazing

    Three coaches resigned and seven varsity players received one-week
    suspensions after a January
    initiation in which basketball veterans removed underwear of junior varsity
    players in an initiation
    on a team bus. Coaches were present but failed to halt the hazing. Parents
    have come to the
    defense of the coaches.

    2000
     North Yarmouth Academy (Maine)
    hockey hazing

    Two players were disciplined by the headmaster after a  hazing.

    2000
    Hilton Head High School (South Carolina)
    Wrestling hazing

     Wrestling coach George Dixon resigned after a student said he had been
    sexually assaulted with a broomstick during an initiation rite.

    2000
    Einstein High School (Maryland)
    Athletic hazing
    Einstein High School suspended veteran wrestlers and forfeited one match
    after a rookie was
    hazed.

    2000
     Decatur High School (Texas)
    Athletic hazing
 
 

    The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported an instance of athletic hazing in
    which two players were
    severely bruised.

    2000
    Mansfield High School (Texas)
    Athletic hazing

    A football player beaten by veterans was treated for fluid in his lungs and
    quit school, according to
    the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

    2000
    East Coast (High School allegation)

    A concerned citizen is fighting athletic hazing in a Maine high school, but
    wants to remain
    anonymous.
    Not included in chart
    

2000
Glendale High School (CA)
Allegations of athletic hazing

Eight athletes were suspended for 5 days each after a victim allegedly had his buttocks
probed with a small bat and a broom handle.

2000
Elkhart Memorial High School (Indiana)
Swim team lawsuit

Sam Lentine, a new member of the swim team, alleges that his head was shaved and cut by another
athlete. When he went to the school's athletic authorities, alleges Lentine, he was told that the head
shaving was part of team tradition.
 

2000
Winslow High School (Arizona)
Sexual hazing alleged (basketball/track)

Members of a girl's athletic squad charged that they saw evidence of male athletes being
inappropriately touched.  Basketball coach Daniel Gonzalez was
indicted on three felony counts of child abuse. The case is sad, involving students who were
regarded as top student athletes in the hazing.
The grandmother of one of those charged has written to state her belief that the incident was horseplay, and she stated her
belief that her grandson is enduring abuse from some in the community.


Northfield Mount Hermon School (Tennessee)

Student Branding (considered hazing)
2000 Verdict (1999 case resolved)

Matthew Rogers, 20, of Franklin, Tenn.,  was put on probation for three
years for carving HOMO onto the back of a 17-year-old. The perpetrator considered what he
did to be hazing, not a hate crime, attorneys in the case told the judge.
 

Eastern Randolph H.S. (North Carolina.)
Hazing injury: Football rookie
2000

The school's football coach is paying for the medical costs of treating a  freshmen player  who has a
bruised ear and a slight concussion following a traditional rookie pillow fight.

Moon Area High School (Pennsylvania)
Football hazing and coverup
2000

After a football player suffered a concussion after being belted with an alarm clock in a hazing
incident, team members tried to make
up a story to cover up the incident, the school confirmed.  "One [player] said the thing
about going to camp [for an initiation] is to pull together as a team. This whole thing has
splintered us, " Coach Mark Capuano told the Pittsbugh Post-Gazette.
 

Bellbrook High School (Ohio)
High School Hazing suspensions
2000

Officials are considering the suspension of three Bellbrook High School students for freshman hazing.

New Richmond High School (Wisconsin)
1999-2000 hockey team
Season forfeited for hazing

The team forfeited four games after a player was taped by teammates. Not included on 2000 chart.
Treated as a 1999 incident.
2000
 

Davis High School (Kaysville, Utah)
Class hazing
Paddling, off-campus

Two students are being investigated for paddling younger students hard enough to bruise them at
an off-campus party.
 

Spartan Youth Football program (WI)
Hazing charged and denied
youth football

A player had his arm broken. There is a dispute as to whether hazing or discipline was the cause.

Lansing High School (KS)
Soccer
hazing

Varsity soccer players were arrested for alleged physical hazing.
 

Cibola High School (NM)
physical hazing
Athletic hazing allegations under investigation

Five Cibola students have been suspended for hazing, said
Cibola coach Ben Shultz, who declined to name the athletes and non-athletes.

Massanutten military academy (VA)
Middle and high school
Hazing and beatings alleged

Elisabeth Leamy conducted a FOX 5 investigation of an academy in Woodstock, Virginia, alleging serious physical hazing and beatings.
 

North Hardin High School
Cheerleader hazing (lawsuit)

The Louisville Courier-Journal revealed hazing allegations by two girls alleging physical restraint, abusive behavior and verbal abuse. The two filed
a lawsuit in Hardin County District Court.

Yucca Valley High School (California)
Football hazing
Hazing and rape alleged

At least two victims claim they were hazed and raped in a hazing initiation. Charges have been brought against numerous senior members of the football team, dividing this quiet community into
camps of supporters and antagonists.
 

El Dorado High School (CALIF)
Non-Criminal Athletic Hazing
Football team
Nov. 2000

School authorities suspended seven starters for a videotaped incident in which a student was shoved in a locker. The coach
subsequently was let go by the principal.

Beachwood High School (Cuyahoga County, Ohio)
Initiation of First-year Students
2000

Three juniors were taken to juvenile court for cracking eggs on first-year students and other
hazing activities. The juvenile court charges were defined as unlawful restraint.

Anderson, IN HS and Middle School students
Unsanctioned  gang, The Six
Victim in coma

Todd Troxell, 13, was  pummeled in the chest for admission into a self-styled
middle-school/high school gang called "The Six" in Anderson, Indiana. The
young people used an inhaler for asthma in some fashion, as well, during
the initiation.
 

St. Louis H.S. (Missouri)
Class Hazing
Suspensions
2000

18 students received one-week suspensions. Students were taped, a tradition banned by the school.

 

Glenn Hills H.S. (Georgia)
Band injury
Hazing (paddling)
2001

A band member allegedly was hurt on an away trip to Florida.

Mohawk High School (Ohio)
Wrestling team
Hazing
2001

Six wrestlers served out suspensions for hazing.

Rifle High School (Colorado)
Gang hazing: allegedly the “02 Gang”
Injuries

A young man was jumped and seriously hurt in an initiation believed by authorities to have been staged by a high school gang. He was burned and suffered a bone fracture, among other injuries.


El Dorado High School (California)
Coach fired, blames hazing
2001

Twelve-year veteran coach Rick Jones says he was fired after a non-criminal hazing incident. The school says other factors were involved.


Grants High School. (New Mexico)
Athletic Hazing leads to expulsion
2001

The school suspended one student and kicked out another after alleged hazing occurred on the baseball squad. Two victims were hazed, but the school released no details.
However, Kendall Cash,  19,  pleaded guilty to  indecent exposure. News accounts said two boys were forced to touch him.
Note from victim's mother to Hank Nuwer follows:

As the mother of the  only victim who "told" I thought you should have more of the  details. Out of all the varsity players only  two boys were not involved.  the school only punished the two boys who  admitted their involvement.  According to the athletic director, if they (the players involved) were all punished,  then the  school would lose its varsity baseball team.
The hazing took place on the school  bus with three coaches present on the bus and a bus driver. The incident took  place over a period of 90 minutes or so.  None of the coaches did anything  to stop the hazing and none were reprimanded in any way.  The hazing was  (sexual assault).  The boys were given a choice of sucking a toe, nipple or touching  the penis of one of the older players. The last two boys they were not  given a choice and were forced to touch the older boy's penis.
The boy who was expelled is now serving a year of probation after a plea  bargain to the charge of aggravated indecent exposure.  One other boy was  charged and found guilty (the school did nothing to him), and it was not  the boy who was suspended.
The school refused to investigate the issue.  It was investigated by the  New Mexico State Police, (Agent Tom Salazar) charges were filed in San Juan  County (Gregg Tucker Assistant DA prosecuted the case) San Juan DA phone number  1 800 641 5086
I do not know who the second victim was, but the first victim, my son, is now  having to attend a very expensive and private  school because he was not only victimized by the boys on the bus, but was  victimized by the school administration and coaches for coming forward. 



                           
Lookout Valley High School. (Tennessee)
Criminal Hazing Alleged.
Athletic Hazing allegations (Lookout Valley baseball team)
2001

Michael Shaun Long, 18, was  first charged with  sexual
battery  assault. ) The charge of sexual battery was reduced to public indecency. An attorney for Michael S. Long, 18, has asked the court to dismiss that charge.The charge is that he participated in a hazing for the baseball team in which a 16-year-old boy
was forced to accept a player's genitals on his face. Long's attorney plans to argue his client released the victim, unaware the other person planned to expose himself. There also is conflicting testimony by witnesses as to whether or not the victim was actually touched by the supposed assailant.

Palm Harbor University High (Florida)
Principal Says Incident was Rough-housing, not hazing
Baseball Team Incident
2001

Alec Liem, Palm Harbor University High principal, says an incident in a Fort
Lauderdale hotel where players jumped on another player is not a case of  hazing, but rough-housing. The Pinellas County Sheriff's
Office earlier had said it was investigating whether hazing had occurred.

Holden School (Louisiana)
Non-criminal Athletic Hazing
Basketball team
2001

The Holden School decided on education instead of punishment after sixth graders were given pink bellies by the veteran basketball players as a greeting. The coach was unaware of the ritual. No one was injured.

East High School (Salt Lake City, Utah)
Hazing of first-year students
2001

School officials are investigating ways to end a three-decade practice where older students track new students and shave their heads, leaving an E on the scalp of new student s.

Alexandria High School (Louisiana) Update on 2000 case
Athletic hazing with injuries
Civil lawsuit (June)
2001

The mother of new football player Trey Warner III is suing for $50,000, seeking damage for a broken nose and other head injuries. He was beaten in the locker room.

Update on earlier case (1999 incident)
Athens High School (Texas)
Civil Suit Alleges Hazing and Inaction by school district

Tommy and Susan Stutts of Athens and their son filed a suit that said the school and its officials improperly handled an incident in which he allegedly was jumped and hazed on a team bus.

Andrew High School (Iowa)
Athletic Hazing (basketball) alleged
2001

An alleged basketball hazing made victims uncomfortable at their old school. One player who transferred
to Bellevue Marquette was allowed to do so without any eligibility penalty as a result of his victimization.

Layton High School (Utah)
Class Hazing (paddling)
2001

Six upperclass students were suspended for hazing sophomore students.


Northern Highlands Regional High School (NJ)
Girls' field hockey team
Initiation at camp
2001

14 players were expelled from the team after an initiation at the camp involving numerous rituals. Parents for some of the
expelled students have asked district to reinstate.


Groton School
Hazing and student abuse charged
dorm resident
2001

A former student at the prestigious Groton School alleges he was hazed
and sexually assaulted. The school has had no comment for news reporters.

Manatee High School (Florida, October 2001)
Hazing and Post-Hazing Beating, Manslaughter
Bradenton Rotary Club high school club "Interact"
 
James Brier, 16, was beaten to death after having enough of teasing and demeaning pranks, following his rejection into the Interact Club.
He had consumed alcohol, taken off his clothes, performed jumping jacks without clothes--and the members had given him a nickname, Students urinated on him.
Classmate, 17-year-old John Acosta, with a prior criminal record, beat James to death when the two agreed to fight., according to police. Acosta was sentenced to prison.
The  Sarasota Herald-Tribune quoted witnesses who said other boys kicked James. POLICE HAVE NOT ARRESTED OTHER BOYS.
 

Eustis High School (Florida)
Junior HS Football Hazing
Under Investigation (Oct 2001)
A school principal was temporarily removed as investigation is under way.       


Catholic Diocese
Janesville, Wisconsin
Hazing Allegations (November 2001)

A mother has demanded an apology from the bishop after discovering that  older students made her 13-year-old daughter engage in a game of Truth or  Dare which required demaning activities in a coed setting away from school.  No apology came.


Buffalo Grove High School (Illinois)
Chicago suburb
Hazing Suspensions

12 upperclass students have been suspended in a hazing incident.


Sycamore High School (DeKalb, Ill)
Hazing allegations
Football team

Allegations of improper touching of athletes' bodies during a football hazing are being investigated by the school and police, according to the Daily Chronicle newspaper.  

Pinkerton Academy (New Hampshire)
Internal investigation, hazing allegations (Dec. 2001)
Basketball team

Pinkerton coach Tony Carnovale says that a  "real minor situation" occurred while the team was at a
Comfort Inn in Hyannis, Mass.

.
Baldwin High School (NY, Nov-Dec 2001)
Hazing charges
Football team
Two seniors have been charged with first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child following the alleged hazing in a locker room before practice. The victim was 14. Other teammates have threatened the victim. 


Averill Park High School (Sand Lake, NY , Dec 2001)
Hazing on Trial, allegations of tampering
Football
Five people (two teachers and three students) plead not guilty in  hazing  incident; (allegations were that a student dragged his genitals against a junior varsity player's face).


Webster High School
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Sexual Hazing (Fall semester 2001)

 
Tulsa Schools suspended fourteen students  and cancelled the Webster   ninth-grade football season after a 14-year-old
student allegedly was  held him down and raped with a broom handle.   This was followed by whipping him with a weight belt. His genitals were beaten  with traffic cones.
 

Cottonwood High School    (Granite School District , Utah)
Hazing of New Students
Suspensions and charges (Fall 2001)

Seven teens were suspended and charged with misdemeanor hazing for covering a student with unpleasant concoctions.


Pentucket High School (Mass.)
Sexual hazing acts alleged
Police investigation follows school "internal" handling of situation.
Football team (2001)

An alleged preseason hazing incident involving eight or more players  at a football camp is now being looked into by police.
At Camp Marist in Center Ossipee, N.H., veteran players allegedly placed genitals in faces of players, according to an investigation by the  Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune reported. One coach expressed surprise, saying the matter had been handled internally.


New London High School (Madison County, Ohio)
Sexual assault allegation
Wrestling team (2002)

A 14-year old player's statement that he was sodomized with fingers by teammates is under investigation.

Carson High School (Nevada)
Hazing Reforms Introduced by School

Summary from "Principal says hazing tough to stop at Carson High"
Ray Hagar
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
January /2002

Principal Glen Adair told school board members Tuesday night that Carson
High School is winning its 60-year war on hazing. "When it was initially started, it was really innocent," Adair said. "It
only involved a few people and was fairly discreet.
"Now, we have young men that are stripped naked, we have young men who are
asked to run down a hill and are shot with BB guns, whipped with trout
rods, beat with belt buckles and everybody has a high old time."
Adair said such incidents happened at Carson High at least five years ago,
but there have been no incidents this year and only a minor hazing incident
last year in which girls had shaving cream sprayed on their heads.

Alamo Heights High School (Texas)
Cheerleader Hazing and Alcohol
Case Appears to Be Headed to Court

 
 Officials dismissed 15 of 16 varsity cheerleaders for alleged  hazing  and underage drinking. Parents have countered with a lawsuit,
saying males present were punished less severely.


Greenville High School (Maine)
Hazing ended with policy (2002)

The school has ordered all hazing stopped. Previous hazing included making first-year students jump into an icy lake and race with
Tabasco sauce in their mouths.
 

North Sanpete High School
Mount Pleasant, Utah
Shaving male cheerleader’s pubic hair
January 22, 2003

Two wrestlers were suspended for 10 days by the principal after a male cheerleader alleged they had tried to haze him by shaving his pubic hair. One teen wrestler was given probation. An 18-year-old wrestler was fined $550 after entering a plea of guilty in Mt. Pleasant municipal court to a single Class C misdemeanor charge of assault, according to the Deseret News. The school district was sued by the cheerleader’s parents and settled for an undisclosed amount.

Attica High School
Attica, New York
Urine splashed on basketball players as initiation
February 2003

One player was charged for hurling basketballs at players, while an 18-year-old player was charged with four counts of battery by body waste, three counts of battery causing bodily injury, and three counts of battery. That player in turn criticized school officials, saying he himself had been subjected to beatings and being covered with urine as a first-year player. Three veterans were each given one-year probation sentences by a court.

Kirtland High School
Geauga County, Ohio
Summer camp counselor hazing alleged
2003 (investigation carried over into 2004)

A 17-year-old counselor was charged with hazing after exposing himself and requiring younger campers to perform situps that brought him into the vicinity of his bare buttocks. A prosecutor blasted Kirtland administrators for failure to cooperate with the investigation for more than eight months, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The incident came to light when a mother visited the camp and saw the alleged hazing.

Glenbrook North High School
North Brook, Illinois
Powderpuff football game by females
May 2003

Older students pelted younger females with waste and other substances in a widely viewed hazing on CNN that was fueled by alcohol purchased by some parents of the hazers.

Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School
Broadview Heights, Ohio
Finger inserted during hazing (charges reduced)
May 28, 2003

As part of a hazing practice done to freshman and sophomores, two teens held down a 16-year-old while
a third teen put one finger into the victim’s anus. Patrick Pristas, 18, pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and unlawful restraint and was put on probation.

North Carolina State University
Raleigh, North Carolina
sodomy
2003

Two Avery County basketball players working at an NCSU basketball camp admitted sodomizing younger students in a dormitory, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. One was found guilty of ten counts of hazing and the other was guilty of multiple accounts of simple assault. One was expelled from Avery and both were kicked off the basketball team. The two were placed on probation and ordered to stay away from the victims. A father told the newspaper is son’s rectum was severely injured. The families of the victims cooperated with the court to let the more culpable offender receive a misdemeanor charge instead of a felony charge that brought with it far tougher sentencing. Avery basketball coaches were supposed to be supervising the counselors.

Fulton School District
Fulton, New York
Alleged sexual hazing
2003

Four junior high football players were accused of terrorizing younger players by holding them down and sexually attacking them, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard.

W.C. Mepham High School
Bellmore, N.Y.
Football Camp
2003

Veteran football players penetrated three JV players with a broomstick, pine cones and golf balls during several attacks. Two coaches lost their job and were reassigned without teaching duties. Two players were sentenced to serve time in detention centers. Two others received probation.

Savannah-Country Day School
Savannah, GA
Cheerleading
Possible hazing incident (sexual)
August 4, 2004

Members of the Country Day school cheerleading squad were reportedly told to commit humiliating and sexual natured acts by other squad members.  An investigation began following rumors of the incident.  Five members were expelled from school.


Groton School
Groton, Massachusetts
Sexual hazing offenses
2004

Cannon "Zeke" Hawkins and other students came forward to report sexual hazing and exploitation of younger students by upperclassmen. He and others had their genitals groped. The Trustees of the Groton School pleaded guilty in 2005 to a failure to report the child abuse allegations as Massachusetts law required, according to the Lowell Sun.

Central Cabarrus High School
Charlotte, North Carolina
Indecent liberties during hazing
May 2004

Although a school spokeperson refused to divulge details of an alleged hazing attack, the school superintendent told the Winston-Salem Journal that three baseball players were suspended for taking “indecent liberties” during a hazing incident. No other details were available.

Lassiter High School
Marietta, Georgia
Hazing with sexual battery
March 2004

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that three students had been charged with sexual battery offenses following two hazing incidents. The district cancelled the remainder of the season.

Leavitt Area High School
Turner, Maine
Senior paddling
March 2004

Administrators punished seniors for whacking incoming students with paddles. No one was charged. No injuries were reported.

Roselle Park Middle School.
Roselle Park, New Jersey
Basketball initiation with simulated homosexual sex acts
March 2004

The Star-Ledger of Newark reported that four players were inappropriately touched with body parts by two 15-year-old players. The matter was tuned over to juvenile authorities following complaints. The newspaper did not know the specific charges that were filed.

Glenbrook South High School
Glenview, Illinois
Paddling and alcohol use
April 2004

Authorities said 11 lacrosse members paddled 13 newcomers to the team.

Camp Lohikan (Pennsylvania)
West Morris Regional School District
New Jersey
Nude skits at football camp
2003-2004

Coaches were admonished after sophomores were asked to put on skits for the entertainment of older players. Skits included nudity and covering of a naked player with food substances. The news of the skits reached administrators months after the camp ended.

Hastings High School
Hastings, MN
Senior-freshman paddling
June 2004

Six seniors at the high school were charged with assault after beating incoming freshmen with hockey sticks. At least two enter guilty pleas to misdemeanor assault.


West De Pere High School
De Pere, WI
Sexual hazing by urination
September 2004

Younger students of the high school were hazed by older students during homecoming activities.  The incident involved the students being taped to poles and sprayed with shaving cream.  Others were urinated on, according to the Green Bay Post Gazette.


Buena High School
Sierra Vista, AZ
Volleyball player hazing (sexual)
May 6, 2004 (reported)

A 16-year-old volleyball player was assaulted by an older member of the team while on the bus drive home after a game.  The 16-year-old was held down by other team members while the 17-year-old hit the younger member over the head with his penis.  Four team members were arrested.

Webster County High School
Dixon, KY
Sexual natured hazing
May 5, 2004

Three 18-year-old students sexually hazed a 14-year-old student in a Webster County High School locker room.  Two of the upperclassmen pinned the 14-year-old down and the third pulled down the boy’s pants and touched his buttocks.  All three students are faced with charges of sexual abuse.




North High School
Fargo, ND
May 2004

This incident occurred on the last day of school as upperclassmen paddled freshman students.  Five students who committed the act were suspended from school.  Alcohol was reportedly involved.

Roane County High School
Kingston, TN
August 2004

In this incident, freshmen students were reportedly beaten by upperclassmen with a sand-filled plastic bat.  Four football players from the high school were involved, which resulted in suspensions.  Principal Jody McCloud is set to resign at the end of the 2004-2005 school year, though uninvolved in the incident.


Central Cabarrus High School
Concord, NC
Baseball team hazing (sexual)
May 4, 2004

Three upperclassmen students, also members of the high school baseball team, reportedly sexually hazed another student in a school locker room.  The three students were suspended.


Piedmont Hills High School
San Jose, CA
Football team hazing
September 2004

Varsity football players on the high school team have reportedly hazed younger players of the junior varsity football team.  The players reportedly pushed a junior varsity team member.  The players were suspended from playing in the season opener while the investigation continued.


Griffith Senior High School
Griffith, Indiana
Possible soccer hazing incident
September 2004

Older members of the Griffith High School soccer team reportedly taped other younger members of the team together and to trees.


Sandwich High School
East Sandwich, MA
Football team hazing
September 14, 2004

Nine Sandwish High School football team members severely beat a freshman team member.  Garrett Watterson was beaten on the field by varsity players.  Watterson was taken to the emergency room with a ruptured spleen and was hospitalized after surgery.  The nine team members have been charged with misdemeanors and felonies.


Taunton High School
Taunton, MA
Football team hazing
September 2004

Several members of the Taunton High School football team were suspended after urinating and defecating on freshmen team members’ uniforms and equipment, according to The Enterprise.


St. Paul’s School
Concord, NH
Sexual natured hazing
September 2004

Twelve freshmen students were hazed by upperclassmen females.  The incident involved the senior girls waking up the freshmen student and having them perform and answer sexual natured acts and questions, according to The Concord Monitor.  15 students were suspended.



September 24, 2004

Saint Pius X High School
Pottstown, Pennsylvania
Improper touching during football hazing
2004



In the end no charges were placed against players for alleged sexual hazing, but the head football coach was dismissed and police were reviewing possible charges to levy following an alleged hazing at halftime of a football game.

Milton Area High School
Milton, PA
Football team hazing
October 7, 2004

A football team member paddled a 10th grade team member in a locker room shower.  The paddles were made in shop class by the 10th graders, which were then used by the senior football team members. 


St. Pius X High School
Pottstown, PA
Suspected sexual natured hazing
August, 2004

Seven members of the high school’s football team were suspended for hazing sophomore team members.  IcyHot was reportedly put in the sophomore team members’ jockstraps.


Glenbrook South High School
Glenview, IL
Lacrosse team hazing
March 12, 2004

13 new team members of the Glenbrook South High School lacrosse team were beaten with a paddle by older team members.  Alcohol was involved.

Melvindale High School
Wayne County Michigan
Allegations of sexual assault during hazing
2005 lawsuit

A lawsuit regarding attacks allegedly occurring in 2003 was filed by a former athlete who played for the football team in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The suit criticizes coaches and school officials for their handling of the incident. The suit charges the athlete was held down and molested.

St. Paul's School
Concord, New Hampshire
Allegations of sexual hazing not verified
2004

After some students identified as victims in a sexual simulation case failed to come forward, police concluded they had no case against older students who had allegedly required younger students to simulate sex acts. School officials did discipline seniors, however.

Barnegat High School
Barnegat, New Jersey
Alleged JV football team hazing
September 24, 2004

Hazing allegations involving molestation of a 14-year-old were reported after a party at a residence where a football team member was reportedly held down by other team members and sexually assaulted with a pool stick, according to the ABC-TV web site. Some team members used cell phones to photograph the alleged initiation, according to the Badjocks.com site. Police charged one juvenile with aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal restraint, assault, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose. Two others were charged with lesser offenses, including the attempted destruction of cell phone evidence.

Colonia High School
Middlesex County, New Jersey
Sexual hazing on soccer team
November 2004

Four soccer players entered guilty please to allegations they put a banana between a player’s bare buttocks to simulate a sex act, a common prank at the school according to testimony reported in the Star-Ledger. In the course of the so-called prank, the victim’s buttocks had been touched.  The players argued they considered the event to be a joke, not an assault. One of those accused of criminal restraint, age 18. went on to play college soccer at a New Jersey College and was interviewed subsequently in an article on campus behavior to say that hazing was not allowed at his new school. Colina High forfeited a game during the investigation. Lawyers for the accused stressed the event was supposed to be a prank, not a hazing, in the minds of their clients.

Western Branch High School
Chesapeake, Virginia
Hazing
2004

Two students admitted to lesser crimes than first alleged. The students were offered probation in a hazing case.  A letter writer
disputes facts printed in newspapers at time.

Port Hope High School
Port Hope, Michigan
Basketball sexual hazing alleged
2005

After Derek Kessel, a student with learning disabilities, died in a single car crash, police and his parents began pursuing Derek’s allegations that he had been taunted and poked inside his buttocks during a hazing meant to humiliate him. Huron County Prosecutor Mark Gaertner told reporters and family there was insufficient evidence of anything other than horseplay and declined to press charges. The alleged hazing case remains disputed by the family. The crash was due to Kessel driving in an unsafe manner, ruled Gaertner. For documents in a lawsuit filed by family and a slideshow, see http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/porthope/


West High School
Anchorage, Alaska
First-year student paddling
2005

The Anchorage Daily News reported the suspensions of nine upperclassmen in a paddling incident reminiscent of the chasing down of new students in the movie “Dazed and Confused.” The school investigation found a number of incidents that occurred in various locales. The paper reported no arrests.

A.H.S.T. (Avoca, Hancock, Shelby, and Tennant Community) High School
Avoca, Iowa
Improper touching with genitals during hazing incident
2005

The adult son of the wrestling coach and four veteran wrestlers received probation on charges they assaulted a younger wrestler and touched or attempted to touch him with their genitals, according to the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil.
Ross Pattee, 18, son of coach Gary Pattee who was volunteering his time, acknowledged the hazing and was given probation, according to the paper. Charges against two other accused wrestlers were dropped by the Pottawattamie County District Court because the victim refused to testify against anyone else, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

Plattsmouth High School
Plattsmouth, Nebraska
Improper touching admitted by hazer after sodomy charged by victim
2005

After several varsity players changed their story, a veteran player was cleared of charges he sodomized a player.

The criminal charges against Jacob Schippert for sexual assalt during hazing were not sustained. Schippert was expelled and admitted simulating sex but said the act was meant as a prank and had been done by him to other players on other occasions, according to the World-Herald. The victim claimed he had been anally violated with Schippert’s fingers.

Donna High School
Donna, Texas
Sexual assaults claimed during football hazing
2005

In the aftermath of charges that three football players tried to insert fingers into a new player’s rectum, the school board fired several coaches and its  athletic director. Hidalgo County offered at least three athletes, ages 17 and 19, a diversionary program as an alternative to putting them through a criminal trial.

Fairfield Warde High School
Fairfield, Connecticut
Bondage and poking a hogtied but clothed victim
2005


The “hogtying” ritual described for the first time at a Trumbull, Connecticut school was also practiced here, albeit with a clothed victim. A lacrosse player was prodded and videotaped as he was hazed, according to the Post (Connecticut).


Vestavia Hills High School
Vestavia Hills, Alabama
Breast slamming as initiation claimed by student
2005

An alleged breast slamming initiation was handled quietly by juvenile authorities after a 15-year-old female softball player charged that she was pummeled during an initiation at a motel where the team stayed. A school representative said it appeared nothing more severe than students “playing around” had occurred.

Archbishop Williams High School
Quincy, Massachusetts
Urination on player as hazing
2005 (lawsuit filed)

After an Archbishop Williams hockey star admitted he urinated
on a younger player and no charges were filed, the father of the victim sued the school, according to the Patriot Ledger. The player was suspended for one week.

Chapel Rock Youth Camp
Yavapai County, Arizona
Penetration with canes and broomsticks into the clothed bottoms of 18 boys
Summer 2005

While angered parents called for aggravated sexual assault charges to be placed against two counselors for the sexual hazings of at least 18 young campers, a district attorney allowed them to plead guilty to a single lesser count each that resulted in 30 and 45 day sentences apiece. The prosecution accepted the argument that the sexual touching was intended as horseplay and hazing, not rape.


Deer Park High School
Suffolk County, New York
Improper touching during a JV basketball team hazing
January 16, 2006

Two JV players restrained a victim, 13, while another JV basketball player groped the eight-grader in a school locker room. Deer Park High School administrators ended the team’s season. The person doing the touching was charged with juvenile delinquency, a lesser offense because he was a juvenile. The basketball coach lost his teaching position.

Sierra Vista High School
Las Vegas, Nevada
Conviction on reduced verdict of lewd conduct and battery
February 3, 2006

A basketball player was found not guilty on accusations that he put an object into a 15-year-old player’s buttocks, but he was convicted on the lesser charge of  touching him on a gym floor during a piling-on by other players.


Wasatch High School
Heber, Utah
Baseball hazing
March 2006

Students were suspended on an away trip after veterans piled on younger players in a motel with resultant groping. The school suspended some participants.


Weber High School
Pleasant View, Utah
Coerced streaking of Warriorettes alleged
April 2006

New female members of the school’s drill team claimed they were asked by older members to streak naked across a darkened football field, according to the Deseret Morning News.


Dixon High School
Dixon, California
Paddling during hazing
June 1, 2006

Four males were accused of hitting younger males hard on the buttocks in an initiation held at a female student’s house, according to the Sacramento Bee. Police charged the four with hazing.  Before the hazing law was tightened in California, a similar incident involving females occurred at the same school.

Fairhaven High School
Fairhaven, Massachusetts
Semen allegedly poured on player during hazing
July 2006

The New Bedford Standard-Times reported that a football player alleged that he had been taped to a bed while bodily fluids were dumped on him during an away football camp. The players were kicked of the team and now face felony charges to answer to the victim’s allegations, according to the Boston Globe and Standard-Times.


Spring Grove Area Senior High School
York, Pennsylvania
Improper touching and sexual simulation
August 2006

Seven football players were charged with harassment following a sexually tinged hazing in which players nonetheless had their clothing on. The incident occurred at an away football camp at Albright College in Reading, PA.

Gustine High School
Gustine, California
Allegations of sexual assault
Summer 2006

As of 2007, two veteran players may face criminal charges in an alleged sexual hazing involving football rookies. Two others have also gone through juvenile court for their roles in the incident. The Modesto Bee reported that the assault involved an air pump and used condom. The victim has filed a $3 million claim with the school district. The coach’s contract was not renewed.



Lehi High School
Lehi, Utah
False sexual hazing charged by player
October 2006

A 15-year-old who said he had been victimized in a sexual hazing by football teammates admitted he had made up the tale and was charged as a juvenile for supplying false information to law enforcement. The allegations prior to the admission had created a furor in the community.

San Ramon Valley High School
San Ramon Valley school district, California
Allegations player was kicked in groin
October 2006

The school suspended four JV football players after complaints surfaced that a player was kicked in the groin, given a wedgie, and hazed. The incident was under investigation.


Arlington Country Day School
Jacksonville, Florida
Student athlete taped and made to disrobe in a hazing as punishment
October 29, 2006

School officials fired a coach who punished a 13-year-old player by making him strip to his shorts and run laps. Some players also taped the player with duct tape. The player apparently had ignored the coach’s instructions.

Dublin Coffman High School
Dublin, Ohio
Rape allegations against two coaches during hazing
March 2006

Two lacrosse coaches are facing serious charges of aggravated rape and assault which, upon conviction, could result in a 60+ year sentence, according to the Columbus Dispatch. The coaches have been fired, and they and the school district are facing a civil suit filed by a former lacrosse player who says one coach held him down while another coach inserted a gloved finger in him during an away bus trip. The Dispatch quoted the suit as saying the two coaches resurrected a hazing tradition that had been done to them in the 1990s as lacross players at Dublin Scioto High School.

Lexington High School
Lexington, South Carolina
Toilet hazing
March 2006

A freshman baseball player charged that he was injured as five players swarmed him and swirled his head in a toilet. The five were suspended for one week. Two JV coaches who had knowledge of the incident were suspended for the season from coaching (not from teaching), according to The State of Columbia, SC.

Dom Savio High School
Boston, Massachusetts
Coach hazing and sexual assaults
December 2006

Former wrestling coach Everett Bower, 34, pleaded guilty to hazing, raping and sexually assaulting two then-15-year-old wrestlers he had invited to join his handpicked group he called the Disciples, according to the Boston Globe.

Camp Condor
Kern County, California
Allegations of sexual battery and simulation
2006

A mother accused two teen-age counselors of hazing and humiliating her 10-year-old son. Sexual battery charges were filed against one  of the teens, according to television station KGET 17. The mother said the teens, though clothes, simulated oral sex with her son.

A Better Chance
Glastonbury, Connecticut
Penetration with a pen and brutal beatings
June 2007 (final sentencing)

Many victims were beaten over a long period of time in this residential home for minority youth with potential for success. One was given the choice of a beating or being sodomized with a pen. Three teens were sentenced to jail terms of five years (needing to serve nine months or less) and one, who testified against the other three, was put on probation for three years. All accepted plea agreements (the three pleaded no contest) and otherwise could have received far tougher sentencing on numerous charges. The no contest was entered by counsel for Jeff Utobor, Silvester Baez and Pedro Reyes. The fourth teen given probation was Christopher Lewis. Baez pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit first-degree sexual assault. Utobor was accused of inserting the object while the other two held down a victim. A resident director voluntarily left his position when the charges became known but was not implicated in any of the events.

Molalla High School
Molalla, Oregon
Alleged sexual hazing and one count of alleged sodomy
December 2006 (ongoing in 2007 investigation)

At least five teenage basketball players (oldest age 18) and possibly more will end up in court on felony charges that they sexually hazed a younger player. One is accused of using a finger to penetrate the victim, according to the Oregonian. The hazing attacks were alleged to have occurred in a motel and tea bus during a road trip.  The trio are to appear in court in July of 2007.


Whitman-Hanson Regional High School
Whitman, Massachusetts
Athlete allegedly sucker punched in groin
January 2007

Five upperclassmen were suspended when a hazing prank involved hitting a first-year student in the groin while he was taped to a bench, according to the Boston Globe. The school informed police of the incident.




Priest River Lamanna High School
Priest River, Idaho
Alleged sexual hazing by band members
April 2007

Several band members have been charged with a crime on charges they sexually touched a 14-year-old band member with their genitals or placed them near his face as he slept. The band was on a road trip to British Columbia. Three of the accused are 18 years old. Police are studying a videotape made to humiliate the victim.

Flower Mound High School
Denton County, Texas
Hazing admissions and denials
2005-2007

About the only thing residents of Denton County agree upon is that they disagree upon whether antics by veteran wrestlers against new wrestlers at a 2005 pool party at a private residence constituted hazing. A judge ruled that he saw no evidence that compelled him to proceed with hazing charges against a coach and several wrestlers. However, the Dallas Morning News said allegations originally were that the incident was an initiation in which sexual assaults and beatings took place. The Morning News reported that “three juveniles, including at least one initially charged with sexual assault, pleaded true to assault charges in adjudicated agreements.” An 18-year-old was given probation, a fine, and community service after pleading no contest to a charge of no contest to a charge of assault with bodily injury, according to the paper.

South Hills High School
Fort Worth, Texas
Alleged “swirlie” on younger teammate
March 2007

Eight baseball players were suspended for an  undisclosed locker room attack on a fellow student. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram quoted a mother who said the incident was the dunking of a younger player’s head into a toilet. The paper said the school decided it would not seek criminal charges against any of the eight.

Glenbard East High School
Lombard, Illinois
Urinating on a teammate called a prank, not criminal hazing
2007

School officials have maintained that the locker room attack of a baseball player urinating on a younger teammate as three mates held the boy down was a prank, not hazing, recalling similar school denials made in many other instances. According to the Daily Herald, a local police chef ruled it was a matter for school officials to punish, not a criminal matter. Those making the ruling that they considered the event non-hazing were Bob McBride, the school’s principal, the coach Nick Scipione, and Police Chief Raymond Byrne. Not even a police report was filed, according to the Daily Herald.



Austin High School
Austin, Minnesota
Allegations of intent to improperly touch during a hazing
(2007)

A teenager charged he was able to fend off two nude older hockey teammates attempting to grope him in a meeting room adjoining the school’s locker room. One faces a criminal trial. Most serious is the charge one is facing which is a felony charge of aiding and abetting indecent exposure, according to the Post-Bulletin of Rochester, MN. The two were suspended for three days.

Coopersville High School
Coopersville, Michigan
Investigation into alleged penetration with object and groping
June 2007

Four JV players were under suspension as law enforcement authorities from the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department conducted interviews into allegations that a 15-year-old was abused in a group hazing, according to The Press of Grand Rapids, MI. No charges had been placed as of this writing. The alleged incident was to have taken place in a locker room. Four students served 10-day suspensions. The JV coach resigned and told The Press some of the hazing might have begun in April of 2007.

Severna Park High School (Millersville and Severna Park, MD)
Pre-freshman hazing
June 2007

As occurred years ago, hazing with paddles that mimicked the movie Dazed and Confused occurred near the end of school in June. One teen was charged,


East Carter High School (Missouri)
Allegations of basketball team sexual hazing (updated as new info is received)
June 2007

As of September 2, 2007 the school has suspended unnamed players, and one father has said his suspended son protected the athletes, not hazed them. Nine victims were allagely sexually assaulted. The prosecution was said by local newspapers to go ahead on August 2 with charges in juvenile court. As of September 2, no charges have been placed. See also archives in The Hazing Blog for
updates and archives on this case. Coach Benji Stahl, a former East Carter basketball star, resigned.


Notre Dame Senior and Junior High School (New York)
Hazing denied; school calls incidents "horseplay"
Soccer team
October 2007.

Seven players and one coach were suspended for showing bad judgment. Some details were suppressed by the Syracuse (NY)
Roman Catholic diocese.

Tallmadge High School (Ohio)
Hazing and rape allegations
football team

A special prosecutor is looking into serious charges levied against two Tallmadge players.

Virden High School (Illinois)
Improper Touching Allegations
Football

What may be regarded as sexual hazing in some states may not be in Illinois.  This school hazing will be closely watched for
whatever charges ensue and how mild they are compared to sexual hazing convictions in other states.




International Allegations of Sexual Hazing

Nakhimov Naval School
Leningrad, Russia
Allegations of beating and sexual abuse of cadets
February 2003

Three cadets aged 14 and under and their parents accused upperclassmen of multiple beatings and one sexual assault during hazing incidents.

Warren Elementary School
Canada
Injuries during paddling
April 17, 2003

Several members of Warren Collegiate were suspended after five seventh and eighth grade boys sustained severe injuries to their buttocks after being paddled with a cricket bat.  The school is located about 20 miles north of Winnipeg.



Tips for parents to prevent your student from becoming a hazing participant.  The Arizona camp hazing: opinion

Editorial: High school hazing is just another form of bullying that won't go away as long as one adult turns a head instead of doing the right thing and speaking out.  You can help.

--Start by screaming at media editors whose sportswriters  set a bad example for teen athletes by writing articles and columns in praise of pro or amateur football and baseball hazing "traditions".  Hazing is another form of unethical conduct that fits in easily in a sports world where steroid use, cheating, and felons-on-the-field exist.

--Start by writing letters of praise to media editors who assign stories condemning hazing in professional sports.

--Start by voting out school board members and firing coaches and principals who either can't or won't pass formal hazing policies or perpetuate idiotic practices such as "Freshman Kill Day." Pat those coaches, athletic directors and board members on the back who say they have had it up to here with hazing--especially with alcohol, hitting, or displays of degrading behavior. Praise those coaches who patrol lockerrooms and buses, or have a responsible adult do so for them. Praise athletic directors who build team spirit with structured team dinners, outings, and team-building exercises.

--But mostly, start with your own son or daughter. Teach them to speak out and confront hazers.  Teach them to mentor younger players, not make sport of them or touch them inappropriately. Remember, the degrading hazing behavior you stop in high school may also cause your son or daughter to despise hazing in college and on the job years later.

--Hank Nuwer

hanknuwer.com                                       hank nuwer

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