DOVER-FOXCROFT — Kaiden LaValley didn’t expect to be at Foxcroft Academy this week. He certainly didn’t expect to put on shoulder pads and a helmet again. LaValley, who graduated from Lisbon High School this spring, thought his football days ended like a slammed door last fall, when the last four games of the Greyhounds’ season were canceled as officials investigated allegations of hazing in the team. 

Wearing the blue jersey for the West squad in the Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl? That goal, he thought, ended when Lisbon canceled the final game of the 2024 season against Oak Hill. But he was selected for the annual all-star game to benefit Shriner’s hospitals, and LaValley, a 5-foot-11, 220-pound offensive lineman, will be wearing No. 62 at kickoff Saturday afternoon at Lewiston High.

“The way it ended was pretty rough, especially being a senior and not getting a senior game and all. When I got the news I got picked for this game, I was so excited. I get one last game after getting the season taken from me,” LaValley said Tuesday morning between practice sessions. “This will be my last game, my last time stepping on the field as a player.”

Of course a few of LaValley’s West teammates have asked him things like what went down in the Greyhounds locker room? What led to the investigation by attorneys from Portland law firm Drummond Woodsum, which concluded the team had “a culture of hazing and roughhousing”? What led to the abrupt end of the season?

“I’ve had some guys ask, ‘What really happened?’ It’s always the same spiel. I wasn’t involved with it. Obviously, I wasn’t involved or I wouldn’t be here,” LaValley said. “It sucks the way it ended, how it got taken from us, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ve got one last game, and that’s what I’m working for.”

On Tuesday, LaValley reiterated the stance many in Lisbon have taken since last fall. Whatever happened was horseplay and didn’t rise to the level of hazing, no matter what Drummond Woodsum’s report said.

There’s no doubt something did happen, though, and that there were victims. And dismissing it as horseplay is a disservice to those victims. Seven Lisbon players were dismissed from the team early in the investigation. A Lisbon police investigation didn’t lead to charges being filed by Neil McLean Jr., the district attorney for Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford counties. McLean washed his hands of it, saying his office was charged with investigating an incident from August, not a broader problem of hazing at Lisbon High. He credited Drummond Woodsum’s investigators for doing a thorough job.

The first game cancellation was a shock, LaValley said. It came on game day, he said, as the team expected to go to Rumford on Oct. 4, 2024, to take on Mountain Valley. LaValley held out hope each week that he and his remaining teammates would get the go-ahead to resume practices and play a game on a Friday night. Each ensuing cancellation was numbing, he said.

“That was definitely the worst part. At first, it was just one game that was canceled. Then leading into every game being canceled, we didn’t know until right before. We didn’t know we lost our season until they canceled our last game, pretty much,” LaValley said. “We weren’t able to practice either. We were kind of in the dark the whole time.”

As a junior, LaValley earned second team all-Campbell Conference honors as an offensive lineman. As a senior, he switched positions, from center to left guard, and was feeling comfortable in his new role when the season ended at the halfway point. He’s playing left guard for the West this week, learning the pass blocking schemes to keep quarterbacks Jamier Rose of Noble and Peter Martin of York upright with plenty of time to look downfield for their receivers.

LaValley stayed in shape simply by going to work.

“I do carpentry for work, so I’m always working outside and doing hard labor. That’s nothing compared to three practices a day and all this, but I’m handling it pretty well. I get to the gym after work some days,” he said.

Now LaValley will get that final football game, the one he feels was snatched from him by things out of his control last fall. Something happened at Lisbon, that’s obvious. Just as it’s obvious many players, including LaValley, were likely collateral damage. Even if you see your teammates doing something you know is wrong, peer pressure is powerful. Drummond Woodsum’s report made a point to note the student-athletes projected a veneer of toughness as a way to downplay what happened.

You keep your head down and focus on yourself, until you look up and the season is lost. LaValley is lucky. He knows that. Now he has a chance to represent his town in a way he feels it deserves to be.

“I did not think anyone was getting picked from Lisbon. I’m pretty happy I got picked,” he said. “One more game. Just one more game.”