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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2019)
2B | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2019 | COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Hazing from B1 a safe learning environment for chil- dren. This, as it turns out, is not a Cot- tage Grove cultural issue. It is not even an Oregon cultural issue. It is even tenuous to conclude that it’s a sports cultural issue. Research into the frequency of hazing, both sexu- al and non-sexual in nature, reveals the ubiquity of the problem across America, across genders and even sports. The Voice in the Locker Room Elkton High School’s first-year head football coach Jeremy Lock- hart, though still relatively new in his position after taking over in early summer, has years of athletics expe- rience — both as a player and a coach — throughout the state of Oregon. When hazing cases of this magni- tude break in a community, the dia- logue becomes centered around me- dia, law enforcement, local citizens and school administrators. Despite being the “boots on the ground” and the eyes in the locker room, coach- es often lose their voices within the cacophony of controversy. Ultimate- ly, in day-to-day operations coaches, head and assistant alike, are the peo- ple whose voices will set the tenor of the team. As of press time, Lockhart was the only local head to coach to respond to The Sentinel’s request for com- ment. “I would honestly say that, as the head coach, you have 100 percent control in setting the bar and put- ting out the expectations,” Lockhart said of his and others’ roles within a team, which still comes with a caveat acknowledging a student’s free will. “The kids are still going to make their choices, whether they’re good or bad. I can’t make those choices for them,” said Lockhart. “I have to let them know what their responsi- & shoppe play buy stay bilities and consequences are and, if they still wanna do something, that’s on them. So I have no control over that aspect.” ESPN Outside the Lines (OTL) research in 2003 showed 59 cases of hazing at the high school and univer- sity levels between 1990-2003. OTL uncovered 40 more cases that spe- cifically involved sodomy between 2011-2016. These compiled incidents represent only the reported cases and there are likely many more that have gone unreported or uninvestigat- ed. The data shows that the highest frequency of such violent behavior occurs in football and, to a lesser extent, in wrestling. But the larger conclusion is that this is a trend that ultimately does not discriminate. Hazing, as it relates to the more general idea of harassment, is dis- tinct in two important ways. Accord- ing to the non-profit HazingPreven- tion.org, unlike bullying — which involves harassment that is repeated over a duration of time as a means to alienate a victim — hazing is often limited to a single moment or day and is often employed as a process of initiation. If bullying serves as a form of rejection from a group, hazing then represents a discordant form of “welcome.” The group dynamic, then, is cen- tral. If a hazing “culture” exists, it is predicated on a majority acceptance — either silent or vocal — of the practices and behaviors that com- prise the “culture” within that group. For example, in 2018, members of the Bothell High School football team near Seattle, Wash., were ac- cused of participating in a practice they called “Rape Squad.” Once those words were yelled out, players would then target a teammate and attempt to poke them in the buttocks and/or rectum with their fingers or foreign objects. Just as in Cottage Grove, inves- tigations turned up no evidence of penetration and local police ulti- mately declined to pursue criminal charges against the alleged perpetra- tors. Statements from those involved, however, painted a picture of under- statement and equivocation, if not outright acceptance, of sexual hazing practices. “All parties involved indicated that, although highly inappropriate and potentially criminal, the behav- ior was done without malicious or criminal intent or sexual motiva- tion,’’ investigating Officer Garrett Ware wrote in his report. Ware closed the case after deter- mining that the students viewed the acts as “horseplay” and some vic- tims were even known to recipro- cate. These statements leave many questions unanswered: Does it mat- ter how the students view it? Does it matter if it is reciprocated? Does intent matter when the results will be equally traumatic for the victim, whether born out of malice or not? “I wasn’t going to say that it was consensual or anything, but they were just messing around,’’ said the student who initially reported wit- nessing the events in a report by The Seattle Times. The student chose to remain unidentified. But what message are children be- ing sent when something non-con- sensual can simply be accepted as “just messing around”? An unnamed junior at Bothell claimed to have seen the practice all three years he played there, de- scribing it as part of their “football culture” and a harmless attempt at “goofing around.” The Roots of the Problem From coaches, to police officers, school officials and the students di- rectly involved, there is a consistency in how so many of these events are downplayed and deemed acceptable. For Lockhart, it raises an even more disturbing thought. “Maybe I shouldn’t say it’s some- thing innate, but it almost feels like See CAUSES 3B NO MORE GUTTER CLEANING, OR YOUR MONEY BACK – GUARANTEED! 0 % AND! 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