Parents of South Carolina victim won’t cooperate with police after son’s head shoved in toilet. The coach apparently acted swiftly and suspended five players, according to a local sportswriter, and I’d agree the school and coach did their part. In an unrelated case, two coaches were fired after their charges had sex on the bus. Hazing in lockerrooms and camps IS the reponsibility of coaches to prevent.
The story of this dropped-ball case in South Carolina is described here.
Pressures on families to drop charges in athletic incidents are enormous. In the case of Skyview High School in Utah where a civil suit took its course, the victim had to move out of town and live with relatives.
Also, in South Carolina, (January 6, 2006) The Rock Hill Herald noted Rock Hill High School suspended two coaches and seven wrestlers for hazing on a road trip to Virginia.
The following is an excerpt from my book, Broken Pledges. Grad student Steve Jensen conducted the interview.
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 swirls
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.” They
won’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.
