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Hazing News

Cleared Wilson coaches back on the job

Link to Buffalo News story
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/761381.html

Excerpt from Buffalo News:

Wilson board hires back two coaches
Atlas and Baia, cleared in hazing case, unanimously appointed to varsity positions
By Caitlin Murray
WILSON, NY — …The Wilson School Board voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint William M. Atlas head varsity football coach and Thomas J. Baia boys soccer coach, positions they held before being suspended last year over child-endangerment charges.

“Both of us are fortunate that those in this district know us as people, teachers and coaches,” Baia told The Buffalo News via phone Tuesday. “I can’t wait for the first day to get here.”

Neither attended Tuesday’s meeting. Atlas could not be reached to comment.

Atlas and Baia were accused of allowing three varsity baseball players to assault three junior varsity players during a ride back from a game in Niagara Falls in April 2008. Charges against both were dropped July 6, and they were quickly reinstated to their teaching positions the following week, Atlas as an elementary physical-education teacher and Baia as a middle school math teacher.

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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