Why do these football players always choose this sort of "hazing" behavior as described in the article, or some variation. It makes one wonder.

This sort of thing doesn't just happen to football players. I've heard of incidents (not just locally) of similar behavior in swimming teams, cheerleading teams, high school bands, college fraternities and sororities, etc. Pretty much anywhere you have a lot of intensely organized but poorly supervised young people in a private room.

not the most important point of this article, but I never even knew school newspapers covered topics like this. mine mostly contained crossword puzzles.

This article leaves more questions than answers. For one, either there was a sexual assault or there was not? Clearly the athletic director, who quotes the student/victim as saying it was a joke, implies there was not (surprise surprise). And he later states he also talked to “players and parents” and the player is fine. That’s good – the guy responsible for a safe locker room says he’s fine. We can all go back to our lives.

The article says the Oracle's story included “one football player’s description of a sexual assault”, this seems to imply there is a witness to a sexual assault or is this the victim speaking? Or was this another person who was in on the “joke”? Was the ‘unnamed witness’, who is mentioned later in the article, who says the victim was tied to the table with straps, been disqualified for some reason? Yet the fact that we have a front page story seems to indicate there is more to it than a joke where the punch line is 18 months after the fact. It feels like a lot of plausible deniability.

As stated in the article, the student interviews described an incident which required the administration to report child abuse. This lead to a MVPD investigation with no arrests which implies the accusations in the interviews were untrue or didn’t rise to a level sufficient to file charges. And the Superintendent says the accusations were “mostly unfounded”. So was there an assault or not? Was this a 'typical' playful gag in the locker room or did someone go over the line? And if so, how has being strapped down and being stabbed in the rear with a hammer' become typical and or playful?

If this poor kid was coerced into characterizing his behavior as a joke after the fact, either to protect himself or the administration, this is a very big deal. And if he made it all up, why is this front page news? My guess is he backed off his accusations and didn’t want his friends busted. Which means the AD has no idea what’s going on in his locker room.

This article leaves more questions than answers. For one, either there was a sexual assault or there was not? Clearly the athletic director, who quotes the student/victim as saying it was a joke, implies there was not (surprise surprise). And he later states he also talked to “players and parents” and the player is fine. That’s good – the guy responsible for a safe locker room says he’s fine. We can all go back to our lives.

The article says the Oracle's story included “one football player’s description of a sexual assault”, this seems to imply there is a witness to a sexual assault or is this the victim speaking? Or was this another person who was in on the “joke”? Was the ‘unnamed witness’, who is mentioned later in the article, who says the victim was tied to the table with straps, been disqualified for some reason? Yet the fact that we have a front page story seems to indicate there is more to it than a joke where the punch line is 18 months after the fact. It feels like a lot of plausible deniability.

As stated in the article, the student interviews described an incident which required the administration to report child abuse. This lead to a MVPD investigation with no arrests which implies the accusations in the interviews were untrue or didn’t rise to a level sufficient to file charges. And the Superintendent says the accusations were “mostly unfounded”. So was there an assault or not? Was this a 'typical' playful gag in the locker room or did someone go over the line? And if so, how has being strapped down and being stabbed in the rear with a hammer' become typical and or playful?

If this poor kid was coerced into characterizing his behavior as a joke after the fact, either to protect himself or the administration, this is a very big deal. And if he made it all up, why is this front page news? My guess is he backed off his accusations and didn’t want his friends busted. Which means the AD has no idea what’s going on in his locker room.

This article leaves more questions than answers. For one, either there was a sexual assault or there was not? Clearly the athletic director, who quotes the student/victim as saying it was a joke, implies there was not (surprise surprise). And he later states he also talked to “players and parents” and the player is fine. That’s good – the guy responsible for a safe locker room says he’s fine. We can all go back to our lives.

The article says the Oracle's story included “one football player’s description of a sexual assault”, this seems to imply there is a witness to a sexual assault or is this the victim speaking? Or was this another person who was in on the “joke”? Was the ‘unnamed witness’, who is mentioned later in the article, who says the victim was tied to the table with straps, been disqualified for some reason? Yet the fact that we have a front page story seems to indicate there is more to it than a joke where the punch line is 18 months after the fact. It feels like a lot of plausible deniability.

As stated in the article, the student interviews described an incident which required the administration to report child abuse. This lead to a MVPD investigation with no arrests which implies the accusations in the interviews were untrue or didn’t rise to a level sufficient to file charges. And the Superintendent says the accusations were “mostly unfounded”. So was there an assault or not? Was this a 'typical' playful gag in the locker room or did someone go over the line? And if so, how has being strapped down and being stabbed in the rear with a hammer' become typical and or playful?

If this poor kid was coerced into characterizing his behavior as a joke after the fact, either to protect himself or the administration, this is a very big deal. And if he made it all up, why is this front page news? My guess is he backed off his accusations and didn’t want his friends busted. Which means the AD has no idea what’s going on in his locker room.

Adults, need I remind you that it's your responsibility to decide if this is an assault. You should not allow children to dictate to you that being tied down and stabbed in the rectum is just a "joke".

Where are the adults? These kids are minors, are they completely unsupervised? Sounds like Lord of the Flies and apparently this type of thing is happening across the country according to WSJ Web Link

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Due to repeated violations of our Terms of Use, comments from this poster are automatically removed. Why?

The brave young muckraking journalists of the Oracle are not your standard fare set of kids. Remember 'the sex issues' reporting just a couple years ago? Wow - stood up to some parents for their Free Speech rights.

It is clear that the Superintendent is not leading 'his adults' the way that he should. They, the entire athletic department, need to have mandatory retraining on these issues. Sooner rather than 'later'. If Kris Peterson gives an "all's clear" then I will believe MVLA has fixed it's problem. It is a problem - it should involve the head administrator's head if it isn't fixed.

Otherwise - you end up with college athletes and athletic administrators like Baylor's. I hope Jeff Harding, head administrator, reads this - and pays close attention to the fate of the Baylor University president.