Vigil staged in town rocked by hazing scandal

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

SAYREVILLE, N.J. (AP) — Hundreds of people came out Sunday evening for an anti-bullying rally in a central New Jersey town that's been rocked by allegations of sex-related hazing involving its high school football team, which prompted the cancellation of the rest of the season.

The rally was staged in a park across the street from the school, Sayreville War Memorial High. Organizers said the event was held to promote unity and healing within the community and to show support for the victims of bullying.

Participants were given balloons, ribbons, stickers and candles. They were asked to walk around the lake at Kennedy Park and release the balloons or show other forms of support.

Alex Simon, 24, a Sayreville native who recently moved to Connecticut to attend law school, said he came home for the event to show support for his community. Simon attended schools in the town and served for a time as a substitute teacher in the school district.

FULL story at link.



A person holds a candle as they join others at an anti-bullying rally Sunday, Oct. 12, 2014, in Sayreville, N.J.The central New Jersey town has been rocked by allegations of hazing on its football team that prompted the cancellation of the rest of the season. Organizers say the goal of the event is to promote unity and healing within the community, as well as to show support for the victims of bullying. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141013/us--football_team-investigation-ab6cfcef96.html

[Rhinodawg]

1. I won't repeat how the scandal started.

It is really bad.

[840high]

3. Yes it is.

[Frank Cannon]

4. Still can't believe they're calling it "hazing".

Organized sexual assault, maybe. Hazing is short-sheeting someone's bed or making them wear a Donald Duck costume to a mixer.

[840high]

5. Agree with you.

[freshwest]

6. +1

[rocktivity]

2. I strongly recommend they take their booster Web site down

It won't take long before even people outside of Sayreville start matching up faces, names, roster numbers, and ages -- bad news for both the perps and the victims.


rocktivty

[sybylla]

7. I am tired of the media soft-peddling this. The allegations are physical and sexual assault.

It's like if they use hazing or in this case "sex-related hazing" that it's nothing serious and no big deal and boys will be boys BS.

It's fucking sexual assault. The motivation doesn't matter. It's sexual assault. It's physical assault.

Fuck you, asshole media.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. A few observations:

1) American football needs to end, at the very least in the high school/college level. Children have enough problems without adding traumatic brain injury to the list.

2) This won't happen because football, basketball and sports in general are a religion in this country. It also makes too damned much money for the 1%.

3) Because of #1 and #2, organized rape like this is de facto sanctioned and will continue.

4) I don't for one minute believe the coaches were clueless. This kind of behaviour does not happen in a vacuum.

[rocktivity]

11. RE: #4

Guess what?

NJ.com: ...(F)ormer athletes who played for (Sayreville coach George) Najjar while he was the head coach at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn in the 1980s recounted initiation rituals during preseason camp that included Animal House-style paddling of underclassmen by upperclassmen...

Several of Najjar’s former Lincoln players described the paddling as a relatively harmless football tradition that they did not believe Najjar knew about...(a) former Lincoln player...said (t)he initiations occurred “since the dawn of time, from what I understood...I got my paddle, I gave my paddle and that was it. We were family...It was a tradition thing.”

...(A)nother Lincoln football player who graduated in 1987 said he was saved from a paddling by the coach...“They saved me for last for some reason...Coach Najjar came in there and...actually stopped it and didn’t let it go on, and I’ll never forget that. I was in tears because I was afraid...(H)e took us all on the field to run (as discipline) because of what was going on...”

On Wednesday, a man who...claimed to be a former Lincoln football player coached by Najjar in 1985 and 1986, called into WFAN’s "Miked Up," hosted by Mike Francesa. “It was common knowledge amongst the team...(T)he stuff that went on in that camp was degrading and scary. Even though I was a big...and...tough Brooklyn kid, you’d have five, six guys teaming up on one guy, holding him down. The fact that he wouldn’t know could be almost impossible to me. He was never present...(But) they overhear what goes on.”

At the very least, the coach is guilty of not being the kind of person the freshmen felt they could turn to. Or maybe they did turn to him and were told they were being wimps....


rocktivity

[Kelvin Mace]

12. This is the kind of attitude and behaviour that

has repelled me from sports, Greek life, etc. And I say that as someone who spent six years in military school.

[Nitram]

9. I always enjoyed touch and flag football.

I don't see why we need more than that except to feed the professional teams.

[radicalliberal]

10. I'm surprised to hear of this rally.

Surprised in the positive sense of the word.

In school sports scandals of this sort, the victims are often victimized again by many of the fans. This is the first time I've ever heard of any organized expression of support for the victims in such a scandal. Of course, there was a student riot on the Penn State campus at the outbreak of the Sandusky scandal. But the students weren't rioting because a pedophile coach had been traumatizing young boys. No, they were upset merely because their little god JoPa had just been fired. Other instances may be cited as well. Evidence of twisted priorities. The victims be damned!