{"id":12163,"date":"2016-09-23T08:03:46","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T15:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/small-town-laments-loss-of-football-season-due-to-hazing\/"},"modified":"2016-09-23T08:03:46","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T15:03:46","slug":"small-town-laments-loss-of-football-season-due-to-hazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/small-town-laments-loss-of-football-season-due-to-hazing\/","title":{"rendered":"Small town laments loss of football season due to hazing"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILOMATH, Ore.<\/strong> \u2014 The scoreboard at the edge of Philomath High School\u2019s football field is dark. The stands are empty. This year, there are no varsity games that brought together many of the town\u2019s 4,500 people.<\/p>\n

Hazing inflicted by upperclassmen on 11 freshman players at a conditioning camp has led to the season\u2019s cancellation, investigations by authorities and the school district, and calls for healing and for the tradition to stop.<\/p>\n

Studies show more than half of college students in sports teams, clubs and organizations have experienced hazing. Many were hazed in high school. Just last week in California, three varsity high school football players were charged in a separate incident.<\/p>\n

Breaking the cycle is difficult, but Philomath is tackling the issue head on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school district is paying attention to both what happened and what could prevent this from happening again,\u201d Superintendent Melissa Goff told The Associated Press. \u201cWe\u2019re paying very close attention to the mental health needs of our students and how we, as a community, can pull together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philomath is a small, sleepy town. Traffic barrels past shuttered businesses on Main Street, a highway heading into the Coastal Range to the west. Corvallis, home to Oregon State University, lies 3 miles to the east.<\/p>\n

The town formed around Philomath College, which existed from 1865 to 1929. Its name is Greek for \u201clover of learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philomath has little in the way of entertainment, and several people said the loss of the football season will be a blow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little bitty town, and there\u2019s not much else to do, so there was usually a pretty big turnout there,\u201d said Rhonda Lewis, a waitress at the C D & J Cafe, on Main Street. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastors representing seven churches have made themselves available \u201cto listen, pray for and offer counseling to local students, parents and school district personnel,\u201d said Jim Hall, senior pastor of Living Faith Community Church. They\u2019ve had conversations with a broad spectrum of townspeople, Hall said.<\/p>\n

The school district contracted an independent investigator, Goff said. That probe is ongoing. The Oregon State Police also investigated, because the incident happened at a state-owned camp.<\/p>\n

Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson said 11 freshman players had intimate parts of their bodies targeted during an initiation.<\/p>\n

In court Thursday, one of six upperclassmen charged with misdemeanors pleaded guilty to harassment. As part of his sentence, he will speak out against hazing and stand up for the victims.<\/p>\n

Haroldson, who advocated for the term, said victims are being blamed for the football season\u2019s cancellation and some students\u2019 expulsions, and instead should be recognized for their courage.<\/p>\n

The hazing existed for years, \u201cinstilled as part of the institution,\u201d and had gotten worse, Haroldson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaches didn\u2019t stop it,\u201d he told Circuit Court Judge Locke A. Williams. \u201cThey chose not to stop it or couldn\u2019t stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The judge noted hazing isn\u2019t isolated to Philomath and said there must be an \u201cunderstanding that this is a practice that cannot continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 22-year-old volunteer assistant coach stands charged in the county where the hazing occurred. All the coaches are on leave, Goff said.<\/p>\n

The decision was made to cancel the varsity season after other athletes and coaches evaluated the readiness of eligible players. The junior varsity season remains on track.<\/p>\n

Brittany Dryden, manager of Wilson\u2019s NAPA Auto Parts store, feels the cancellation is \u201ca little harsh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand people make mistakes … but I don\u2019t see why we have to punish the whole football team, and punish other people that weren\u2019t involved, had nothing to do with it,\u201d Dryden said. \u201cIt\u2019s just not fair to those kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goff has a rebuttal: \u201cHigh school football in Philomath is important, but it is not as important as our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hazing might be part of human nature, and \u201cit definitely goes back to ancient Greece and Rome,\u201d said Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and an expert on hazing.<\/p>\n

Victims take the experience to college and the military, primed to be hazed again and again, Lipkins said in a telephone interview from Port Washington, New York.<\/p>\n

Over time, they often become perpetrators, feeling they \u201chave the right to do unto others what was done to them,\u201d Lipkins said.<\/p>\n

Ending the cycle requires breaking the silence.<\/p>\n

Philomath seems to be handling its case right so far, Lipkins said. To prevent hazing, schools must encourage victims to come forward, using clearly established methods like the internet and even reporting abuse anonymously so they aren\u2019t labeled wimps.<\/p>\n

But few high schools and colleges follow through on promises to eliminate hazing, Lipkins noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey react,\u201d she said. \u201cThey don\u2019t prepare for it and don\u2019t have a system in place in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILOMATH, Ore. \u2014 The scoreboard at the edge of Philomath High School\u2019s football field is dark. The stands are empty. This year, there are no varsity games that brought together many of the town\u2019s 4,500 people. Hazing inflicted by upperclassmen on 11 freshman players at a conditioning camp has led to the season\u2019s cancellation, investigations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":12164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12163"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}