The alleged sexual hazing rituals which forced a New Jersey high school football team to cancel the rest of its season have been revealed by the parent of a player in the program — and the details are are disturbing.
The reported attacks within Sayreville War Memorial High School's football program happened frequently and without warning, the parent claimed. It would start with a howling noise from a senior football player before the locker room lights were abruptly shut off.
In the darkness, a freshman football player would be pinned to the locker room floor, his arms and feet held down by multiple upperclassmen. Then, the victim would be lifted to his feet while a finger was forced into his rectum. Sometimes, the same finger was then shoved into the freshman player’s mouth.
It happened almost every day in the locker room this fall, he said.
The allegations — revealed for the first time — provide details to the events that sparked a criminal investigation by local and county police, and prompted the cancellation of the remainder of the Sayreville football season this week by Superintendent of Schools Richard Labbe.
“[For] 10 seconds, the lights would go off and they would grab a freshman and they would go on,” the parent said. “Right on the floor. … It was happening every day. They would get the freshmen.”
“Kids would just sit around and witness [stuff] like this.”
The parent, informed by his son and other parents close to the investigation, is the first to come forward to reveal the hazing practices Labbe has characterized as “incidences of harassment, intimidation and bullying as constituted by the definition within the anti-bullying statute that took place on a pervasive level, on a wide-scale level, and at a level in which the players knew, tolerated, and in general accepted.”
According to the parent, whose identity is being protected because the parent feared retribution against the family and the player, the routine was initiated when an upperclassman would enter the locker room and make a wolf call or howling noise.
The parent said the “ringleaders” involved in the hazing are seniors.
No charges have been filed.
