A school board in New Jersey said enough is enough — hazing on the football team between older players and freshmen members has reached such intensity that the only recourse is to cancel the season.
So they did, to the angst of parents and players alike. Sayreville War Memorial High School’s football team will now forfeit the remainder of its season, ABC News reported.
The school board voted unanimously to uphold superintendent Richard Labbe’s previous decision to cancel the season, as Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office investigators look into accusations of hazing, bullying and intimidation among the players, ABC News reported.
“It was a parent of a younger kid being taunted, threatened, bullied” who complained, one local official said to ABC News, explaining the genesis of the school’s action.
Specifically, younger players were reportedly being regularly bullied by older players, oftentimes with “sexual overtones,” the official said, ABC News reported. “They would live in fear of seniors and juniors. They would race to the locker room to get changed and get out before the older kids got there.”
But parents don’t think the punishment fits the crime.
“I don’t understand why they’re [all] being punished,” one mother said, ABC News reported. “The [previously] forfeited game was punishment enough.”
And other players on the team aren’t happy, either.
“Now we’re not going to have that closure of going out and finishing our senior year,” said senior player Derek Rodriguez, in ABC News. “It got taken from us, from something we didn’t even know was going on.”
Detectives, meanwhile, are interviewing players, parents and school officials.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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