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Over the last week, two high school hazing cases caught my attention.
One, close to home, with the release of a two-page summary outlining the results of an investigation into allegations of hazing and bullying by members of the Mt. Ararat boys hockey team.
The other, a case involving the boys lacrosse team at Westhill High School in Syracuse, New York.
In both cases, we see teenagers participating in truly barbaric behavior. The summary of the Mt. Ararat investigation outlines a pattern of hazing meant to degrade and humiliate at least four members of the team. The abuse ranged from “the use of homophobic language, intentional urination on teammates in the shower, humping teammates in the locker room while nude, taunting with sexually inappropriate gestures, and other degrading and unwelcome conduct.”
All of that is revolting, vile stuff that speeds past boys being boys and toward criminal behavior. Give credit to Superintendent Heidi O’Leary for taking time with the investigation once it was clear it went beyond the initial locker room incident that set off the investigation in January. Take away that credit for not releasing the report in its entirety.
In Syracuse, the lacrosse players went beyond trying to humiliate and embarrass and straight to terrify.
There, young players on the team thought they were going to McDonald’s on the way home, only to undergo a traumatizing fake kidnapping. Eleven students face misdemeanor charges for unlawful imprisonment in the second degree after Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick offered the accused players a deal: turn yourself in and face misdemeanor charges, or face a felony kidnapping charge.
All 11 high school athletes turned themselves in.
It’s too early to know if the charges will stick or if another deal will be made, but officials in Maine should take note: This is how you handle hazing. Quickly, and with little hand-wringing.
Teenage brains are still developing, we know that, and with that development comes a predilection toward making incredibly stupid and harmful choices. Like physically abusing teammates, as was the case with the Lisbon football team last fall, or what we saw with the Mt. Ararat hockey team, or even the truly horrifying actions of the Westhill boys lacrosse team.
In Maine, we refuse to ensure the worst of these stupid and harmful choices should come with consequences. We’re content to say stop. Don’t make us say stop again. In each case of hazing we’ve seen in Maine this school year, it’s the adults who have failed to step up. The adults shrug and call it a solution.
What cannot be ignored is Mt. Ararat’s status as a co-op hockey program that includes players from Lisbon High School and Morse High School in Bath. It can’t be ignored that this is the second time in months a hazing incident involves student-athletes from Lisbon. It’s well past time for Lisbon to look itself in the mirror and start having serious discussions about the culture surrounding sports in its town. Those discussions should have started last fall. Hitting the pause button on high school athletics while those discussions happen should be on the table. But it won’t be, because that’s more than just words.
High school varsity teams that don’t complete a season face a two-year ban from competition under Maine Principals’ Association rules.
Mt. Ararat, which did not finish its season, plans to appeal that suspension. The MPA’s Interscholastic Management Committee, which rules on eligibility appeals, is set to hold its final meeting of the 2024-25 school year on Thursday. The committee will also meet in September.
The Lisbon football team forfeited the final four games of the 2024 season with the hazing investigations ongoing. On March 20, it won its appeal, paving the way for the football team to return to the field in the fall.
Still, Lisbon officials talked about filing an appeal with the MPA during the early stages of the investigation. They should have been having internal discussions about how sitting out a couple of seasons and trying to actually make changes could be the right option. It looks like the same is happening at Mt. Ararat, because it’s the path of least resistance. It’s easier to just keep playing and call it a just outcome.
This would be a good time for the MPA to step up and say enough is enough and deny Mt. Ararat’s appeal. That would be the wake-up call schools across the state sorely need. It would be proof that hazing is a problem that is taken seriously.
But the MPA already gave Lisbon football the green light, much like it did to the Brunswick football program in 2022 after a hazing investigation rocked that community. The MPA is most likely going to do the same for Mt. Ararat, and for the next program, and for the one after that.
As horrifying as the case in Syracuse is, we need to be careful not to get into the weeds categorizing hazing by levels of severity. If you’re the one getting whipped with a belt, urinated on or having a pillowcase yanked over your head as you’re stuffed in the trunk of a car, hazing is hazing. Two serious incidents in the span of just a few months is proof here in Maine that we need to do a better job of preventing it.
It might take a student-athlete getting seriously injured for real change, and if that happens, we’re all to blame. We’re looking at a very lumpy rug with all the dirt getting swept under it.
