Team hazing practices gain attention

Recent incidents raise questions about group initiations

Sarah Palermo Sports Editor

National news reports on hazing shine a bright light into a dark corner of college and high school cultures. Frat initiations in which boys run naked and blindfolded down a gauntlet of their “peers,” rookie athletes forced to humiliate themselves publicly, intoxicated beyond safe and legal limits—could such things ever happen at Vassar?

While the College doesn’t have fraternities or sororities, athletics at Vassar are becoming more and more prominent in the campus culture. There is even a “Sports Boosters” group on facebook.com that sends out reminders for every game of every team.

According to Associate Dean of the College Ray Parker, Vassar does not have a strong history of being an athletically-oriented campus. Incidents labeled as hazing are “a new phenomenon, so it’s hard to say why it exists,” said Parker.

However, as athletes on campus become more of a presence, “the administration is threatened by the so-called ‘jock-culture,’ and athletes are more closely scrutinized than other students,” said baseball player Adam Gallari ’07. “The last thing we want is to turn into a jock-culture school, so as soon as you attach a team name to [a party] there is always more scrutiny.”

The field hockey and men’s basketball teams experienced such scrutiny first-hand this semester, when both teams were accused of “hazing” their freshmen players.
The two incidents prompted President Fran Fergusson to contact Athetic Director Sharon Beverly, who issued an e-mail warning to all coaches that any further incidents of “hazing” would “result in the FORFEIT of that team's ENTIRE season.”

In an e-mail statement, Fergusson said that hazing is not part of the Vassar tradition, and that she is “personally appalled that this happened.”

But what really did happen? Field hockey players said that the team held a party in a sophomore teammate’s room in Jewett. According to Bernie Wu ’07, the freshmen were “given a condom and a banana, and told to put the condom on the banana with their mouths.”
Security, while patrolling the next morning, reported finding “the fourth floor west hallway of the dorm littered with toilet paper and bananas, covered by condoms.” The security report files also claimed that “this was reportedly done as part of a girl's field hockey team initiation.”

“‘Initiation’ is a trigger,” said field hockey co-captain Alexis Barbalinardo ’07. “If you hear it, because of recent national news, it’s important to look into it.”

Athletic Director Sharon Beverly did look into it, and in an e-mailed statement called the incident “a private team party where they failed to clean up immediately afterwards and security became involved.”

For their part, the players also deny that the party was hazing. With their schedule packed full of games and tournaments until the party on Sept. 24, they considered it their first opportunity to bond, “a chance to get everyone to gel,” according to co-captain Genevieve Fare ’06, since half of the players on the team are freshmen.

Field hockey coach Judy Finerghty agreed with this sentiment, saying that since the party, the team has been a more cohesive unit.

Jessie Shields ’09 said that the freshmen field hockey players were upset that their upperclassmen teammates were being punished for the party. “All of us had so much fun that night,” said Shields. “I know what happened sounds bad, but it is an inside joke on the team that from the outside looks bad.”

The field hockey team is not the only sport being criticized for their party practices; the men’s basketball team was also accused of hazing this semester. On Sept. 22, security filed a report that “a student complainant reported the following: ‘Last night, at least five upperclassman basketball players entered their room, without permission, and dumped flour, threw eggs, and sprayed other things in the room.”

Men’s basketball coach and Assistant Director of Athletics Mike Dutton did say that it was “not a team issue,” as the team had not been formed at the time of the incident. Calling the incident a “prank,” he said it was different from hazing or “endangering with alcohol.”

Men’s basketball team member Brian Butterworth ’09 said that the incident has been “dealt with in-house by the team, who have put it behind them and hope to go on to have a successful season.”

None of the upperclassmen members of the team would comment as of October break.

The Athletics Department is larger than just these two teams, however, and the issues of hazing and initiation touch more than just these players. All athletes interviewed said that some kind of initiation or party with the team occurs near the beginning of the season, mostly to form the team bond that the field hockey players mentioned.

Even a cappella groups use initiations as “an opportunity to become acquainted with [new members] quickly,” according to Tito Crafts ’06, a four-year member of the Axies.
“Axie initiation is an all-day event, and it’s intense for those participating. They have auditions early, then call-backs, then we go to their room and sing to them, and sweep them off their feet to a small party and then to a larger one,” said Crafts.

Most of these parties do involve alcohol, which Beverly called one of “the more serious issues that are associated with hazing.”

One athlete, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that his initiation was “Edward Forty-Hands,” where the participant drinks two forty-ounce bottles of malt liquor that are strapped to his or her hands with duct tape.

“I had done that before, though, just with friends, so it wasn’t a big deal,” said the athlete. “It was not degrading, I was never uncomfortable and I didn’t feel like I was humiliating myself.” He added that upperclassmen members of the team participated as well.

Wu said that at the field hockey event this September, “alcohol was offered as it would be at any party.”

To reflect on whether Vassar is changing, it helps to talk to alumnae about how initiations used to be.
Former baseball player Tim Reinhardt ’04 said that as a freshman he didn’t experience a formal initiation. Even when he was a senior and the initiation was more structured, he claimed that any organized initiation was always voluntary, and he could list players who didn’t participate as freshmen.

Reinhardt said that team members would be getting drunk anyway. “We just made it into a scavenger hunt,” he said.

“We made it perfectly clear that there was nothing wrong with not doing it,” he continued. “As a freshman, an older guy told me ‘I don’t know if you’re a drinker, but never feel like you have to,’ and I know I gave that talk to a few people individually. We never sat them down all together, but even the atmosphere around everything communicated that.”

Most athletes echoed the sentiment that initiation activities are voluntary. Michael Manco-Johnson ’08, who played rugby at Vassar last year and has since transferred to Harvard, said that while the initiation was structured around “chugging as fast as you can, no one was forced to drink [alcohol]. For those who didn’t drink, they had soda. I didn’t feel pressured,” he continued. “I thought it inspired awesomeness.”

Parker commented that as the College becomes stronger in athletics, he feels that team initiations will naturally develop. However, it is the Athletic Department’s responsibility as the first response to these incidents to keep them within appropriate boundaries. “We don’t want anyone to feel demeaned,” he said. “That’s contrary to what the College is about.”
An anonymous athlete agreed with Parker’s statement, stressing that demeaning members of a team is not only contrary to Vassar standards, but also detrimental to building team morale and spirit. “It can only hurt a team if someone feels so hurt or embarrassed that they have bad feelings toward the team.”