Hank
Nuwer (author of High School Hazing)
Washington Post: Should a coach return after admittedly using poor judgment (hair cutting)?
A Nevada coach talks about his son's hazing trauma.
Video interview with Scott Crane on his investigation into athletic hazing at a small school in southeast Idaho. Idaho bill stalls.
Video interview with Darrion Denson, jumped by a chanting team
Parents upset when their student athletes are urinated upon in hazing incident. No charges resulted.
Family Circle covers high school hazing
Vernal Junior High School (Utah) criminal charges for smearing bodies of young wrestlers with bodily fluids. One convicted Bodily fluids were semen--second conviction in case brings 22 days for fourteen-year-old.
A thoughtful feature on student rights v. rights of victims in high school hazing cases.
Jackson High School (Washington State, May 2011). School's cheerleaders punished for hazing.
Valencia High School (N.M.) sees two individuals charged as juveniles, one charged as adult in alleged football locker room hazing. The Valencia County News Bulletin wrote April 30, 2011 that charges included: "criminal sexual penetration in the second degree, criminal sexual contact of a minor in the second degree, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal sexual penetration in the second degree and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor."
Bizarre development in Florida hazing case when a mother is charged by police. December 5, 2010
Brainerd basketball team (Minn.) suspended for hazing
Channel 13 (Indianapolis). Interview with Hank Nuwer. Quote: "You tell your child you deserve respect. You don't have to go through this to get respect," said Nuwer. "You teach your child not to run with the crowd. You teach your child in certain situations you go the other way."
New Mexico cases appear to be on rise. December 5, 2010. But Cibola players off hook with police.
Blackfoot High School controversial case sees Bingham County prosecutor drop all felonies in Idaho; other lesser charges remain pending. Defendants include Nathan Walker (now at Idaho State), Logan Chidester (now at Carroll College), Anthony Clark (now at Boise State above photo), all 19, and an unidentified minor. A fifth defendant, 19-year-old Tyson Katseanes, pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor principal battery as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced Thursday to 40 hours of community service, fined $100 and given a 30-day jail sentence with all but one day suspended. A Blackfoot coach Jonathan Packer failed to have his job renewed but was never charged with a crime. Note: The prosecutor in this case has attacked local and national media coverage, and he offers his own view on whether an incident is hazing or not (once again, and not for the last time, a disagreement over the definition of hazing).
Indiana case in Decatur County may be racially motivated. December 2010
Massachusetts players and coaches suspended. November 2010
Texas case under police and school review. November 2010
Needham hazing of girls draws ire of parents. November 2010
Update on Carmel (IN) basketball hazing. November 2010. And a video interview with Hank Nuwer on Carmel.
Video: Carmel High School introduces a hazing policy following basketball scandal. Video: old policy, Channel 13 Indianapolis
Video: Lawrence North Cheerleader hazing. Nuwer: "It's more disturbing in one way, yes, but at the other side maybe it's an opportunity to do more education and try to educate students and get parents involved along with administrators."
Moorhead officials keep mum on hockey suspensions 2011
Attorney Robert Turner for alleged victim in Carmel basketball case assails grand jury and embattled local prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp after one count dropped against Brandon Hoge. Hoge pleaded guilty to another charge. Statement read by mother of victim in court: "I know what it feels like to be attacked for 30 minutes by three guys. I remember Brandon telling me to: "Just take it, M.D., just take it. Don't fight it!"
Wilson High School (western New York). One student accepted a misdemeanor in a plea agreement. But two coaches and two defendants were cleared of all charges. In another twist, the 19-year-old baseball player who accepted a plea agreement was granted youthful offender status by the courts. This site close not to name the party for that reason.
Nonhazing: Cyberbullying Below:
VIDEO: A suicide and murder in Southern Indiana: Amanda Bennett and online attacks
A list in progress:
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.
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 the team's 18-year-old captain, 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 subsequently was sentenced to prison.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune quoted witnesses who said other boys kicked James. POLICE HAVE NOT ARRESTED OTHER BOYS. Acosta's appeal was denied.
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.