Just weeks after their season was canceled and seven New Jersey high schoolers were detained over allegations that they assaulted fellow football team members during hazing rituals, a school in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has called off its football season over similarly shocking allegations.
The Central Bucks High School West varsity and junior varsity football seasons were canceled on Thursday — one day before the homecoming game — after police alleged that team members in one of the state’s premier football programs engaged in hazing that was sexual in nature and included a type of waterboarding.
According to NBC 10 in Philadelphia, Central Bucks Regional Police said the hazing ranged from a young player being held down while his hair was shaved off, to a form of waterboarding in which seniors would place towels over young player’s heads and send them into the showers.
There was also reportedly an initiation ritual in which fully clothed rookies were required to grab another player’s genitals in front of most of the team’s other members.
Superintendent David Weitzel said the activities did not result in physical harm “but were not harmless.” All the junior varsity and varsity coaches were also immediately suspended following an investigation, in which police said there doesn’t appear to have been any criminal activity. Weitzel apologized to any of the players were were subjected to the “demeaning actions of fellow players” and noted that hazing is strictly forbidden in the district code of conduct.
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