Following is an essay that Jake Savoy wrote about his experience with hazing.
This past football season a player was involved in what the media considered,” horseplay that got out of hand.” Every individual will have a different opinion to situations like this. Some people forget about it and treat it like yesterdays news, while others keep it in their memory. I personally try not to mention it. Hazing, which can be a small slap in the butt, to a riot is wrong, cruel, heartless, and inhumane.
I witnessed a hazing incident at my school on October 14th, 2002. We were just stepping into the locker room while a few seniors called on the player and nagged at him. The sophomore player knew that something would happen in the locker room from rumors and comments said at the previous practice, but no rumors or dirty, filthy comment could have prepared this football player for what was about to come.
After being pushed in the locker room, he was immediately swarmed by upper class football players. Knowing there was no chance of escape, he was quick to obey any orders. He was quiet submissive and lied on the bench face down with both hands under his chin. Immediately the sound of unraveling athletic tape was filling the locker room. The participating players were taping him to the bench by his ankles, legs, back, shoulders, neck, and hands. They were careful not to tape around his buttock. Next, the football shorts and girdle was yanked down form his buttock. Comments like, “Me first,” “ My turn,” and “Get him a good one,” quickly echoed throughout the locker room.
Then it started. The small stings from behind, as players walked by, one by one. Some even came back for seconds because they thought one wasn’t enough. Harder and harder the blows flew. With each swing, each slap, each beat, the innocent sophomore just laid there motionless. Suddenly the slaps didn’t give them enough satisfaction. Some searched and came up with a single sandal, an old, black, dirty sandal. Watching this happen I could feel the pain of each blow from the sandal. Some thought it would be amusing to put an empty tape roll between the crack of his buttocks. Others caught a laugh at rubbing their bare buttocks’ into the sophomores’ shoulders and neck. I don’t even want to imagine what he was feeling, let alone what the smell was like.
Not until an upper classman said, “Look bruh, he’s starting to bleed!” did the pain slow. As I lifted my wet teary eyes at one of the ringleaders, he must have realized just how out of hand the situation had gotten. I indeed was the victim lying on that bench. It seemed so unreal to me at first that it was almost as though I was watching it and not really experiencing it. The tape started to unwind from me. I heard only one voice say how stupid it was and they were dumb for doing it. I applaud that man.
It wasn’t until the next day that my parents knew and I was called into Coach Moreau’s office many different times. Two days following the incident, the news van stopped the car I was driving, wanting me to answer questions that I didn’t agree to answer. I went to he doctor to get checked up. My parents forced me to take two counseling sessions, and the sheriff’s office had a few people sent over to inform me of my rights as a victim. Twenty-eight players were suspended.
Since then they have a coach in the locker room while we are in there, and a new policy on hazing has been enforced. I can only hope that these things will keep anyone from feeling the mental and physical pain that I have.
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