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Hazing News

Athletic hazing: Too often, no bad deed goes punished. Case goes down the toilet.

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.

By Hank Nuwer

Journalist Hank Nuwer tracks hazing deaths in fraternities and schools. Nuwer is the Alaska author of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives; Broken Pledges: The Deadly Rite of Hazing, High School Hazing, Wrongs of Passage and The Hazing Reader. In April of 2024, the Alaska Press Club awarded him first place in the Best Columnist division and Best Humorist, second place.

He has written articles or columns on hazing for the Sunday Times of India, Toronto Globe & Mail, Harper's Magazine, Orlando Sentinel, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His current book is Hazing: Destroying Young Lives from Indiana University Press. He is married to Malgorzata Wroblewska Nuwer of Warsaw, Poland and Fairbanks, Alaska. Nuwer is a former columnist for the Greenville (Ohio)Early Bird and former managing editor of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in Alaska.
Nuwer was named the Ohio Society of Professional Journalists columnist of the year in 2021 for his “After Darke” column in the Early Bird. He also won third place for the column in 2022 from the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He and his wife Gosia, recently of Union City, Ind., have owned 20 acres in Alaska for many years. “The move is a sort-of coming home for us,” said Nuwer. As a journalist, he’s written about the Alaskan Iditarod sled-dog race and other Alaska topics. Read his musings in his blog at Real Alaska Daily--http://realalaskadaily.com and in his weekly column "Far from Randolph" in the Winchester Star-Gazette of Randolph County, Indiana.

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