High school football hazing led to brain damage, according to suit against California powerhouse Mat

[Jilly_in_VA]

High school football hazing led to brain damage, according to suit against California powerhouse Mater Dei


A teenager suffered brain damage and other injuries from a brutal high school football hazing ritual, according to a lawsuit against a prominent Southern California school and the Catholic diocese.

The anonymous plaintiff, a player for Mater Dei High School born in 2004, filed the civil action Tuesday through his anonymous guardian in Orange County Superior Court. Mater Dei, of Santa Ana, southeast of Los Angeles, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange are named as defendants in the complaint, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News.

While he was preparing for the football team’s Covid-delayed spring season, the youngster on Feb. 4 engaged with his teammates in a game of “Bodies,” a Mater Dei ritual in which one student punches another as many times as possible before the person surrenders, according to the complaint filed by Costa Mesa-based lawyer Brian L. Williams.

The plaintiff was struck multiple times in the face and the head during the hazing, leading to permanent scars and a “traumatic brain injury” marked by “pain, slurred speech and cognitive dysfunction,” Williams wrote.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/high-school-football-hazing-led-brain-damage-according-suit-powerhouse-rcna6641

[MagickMuffin]

1. Why would this be considered fun (?)

I'm not sure why hurting one another is considered brave or macho.


It's really troubling.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Gang initiation. . . . nt

[Shrike47]

3. Are you aware of the British sport of shin kicking?

It’s exactly what the name implies.

One does wonder, don’t one?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. This is a bad story through and through. Someone wrote at DU about this yesterday and

linked to the story at the East Bay Times. It gets worse.

SPORTS • HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS • News

Violent locker room ritual at Southern California’s Mater Dei High School left bloodied football player with brain injury, broken nose

If the school wins its game Friday night, it could face the Bay Area’s St. Francis, Serra or De La Salle in the state title game

{snip}

[NameAlreadyTaken]

5. The Catholic church continuing a centuries-long tradition

of beating up people. And I say that as a fallen Catholic myself, and having a few friends who graduated from Mater Dei.

[Jilly_in_VA]

8. Just as common

in secular high schools. This is one you can't lay on the doorstep of the Catholic church.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Has The School Expelled All Involved?

Have they fired the coach?
This stuff keeps going on, yet the punishment seldom meets the severity of the crime.
It's sickening.