Alleged hazing at N.J. high school may have been sexual in nature
Amid allegations of senior football players hazing freshman teammates, Sayreville (N.J.) War Memorial High School canceled the football season on Monday night. On Tuesday, the Board of Education upheld the decision despite outcry from players and parents.
Apparently, football runs the show in Sayreville, a blue-collar town about 40 minutes from New York City.
Little has been publicly disclosed about the ongoing criminal investigation, but according to a Sports Illustrated report, the acts were sexual in nature.
According to SI sources, including one close to the investigation, the allegations are lewd: Investigators are looking into whether upperclassmen on the Sayreville football team digitally penetrated underclassmen on the team. That could explain why one parent told the Newark Star-Ledger that underclassmen players would “stampede” to the locker room to get dressed and exit quickly.
Digital penetration is the legal term for using the hand to penetrate. The SI reporters also spoke with several students at the school.
“Things have been blown out of proportion,” said [Yasmine] Gomez, the freshman. “We know the players, and hazing, to them, they didn’t mean it in that way. It was more like being friends.”
“People who see the news, they don’t know exactly what’s going on,” says Alex Martinez, a senior, who said he was one of many students who heard of the lewd nature of the acts. “So it’s just ‘hazing.’ But this changes it.”
No one shared exact details, at least not that SI reported, other than "the lights were off in the locker room."
If the alleged hazing did involve digital penetration, reports MyCentralJersey.com, it would be the first time this has been investigated within a N.J. high school football program since 1988.
