On Sept. 2, 2012, eight freshmen on the SUNY Geneseo women's volleyball team were summoned via text message to an off-campus house party in the Livingston County village. The hosts were upperclassmen players, and a dangerous game was about to be played.
"I was expecting to be at a volleyball party, like the previous weekend," one freshman said in a police deposition.
This time, it was a hazing ritual — an initiation onto the team. ? Before the night was over, one freshman was near death with a blood-alcohol content of .266 percent — saved only by passers-by as she lay unconscious on the grass. Within days, 11 young women were charged with hazing, and the volleyball season was shut down for the year.
A national plague
Hazing is any form of harassment, abuse or humiliation used to initiate a person into a club, fraternity, organization or team. Rituals are often premeditated and are used to maintain hierarchy in an organization. Hazing —which is illegal in 44 states — knows no societal bounds and occurs in high school and college organizations and teams, the military, church groups and even the highest levels of professional sports. According to insidehazing.com, more than 250,000 students experience hazing to join a college athletic team, 40 percent say a coach was aware of the hazing and 22 percent say the coach was involved.
Because there is no national hazing organization, such as the ones established for child abuse and domestic violence, the only cases that can be tracked are those reported in the media and in independent surveys.
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