INDEPTH: BULLYING
Hazing: Passing on the rites
CBC News Online | October 19, 2005
What is hazing?
Hazing is most commonly associated with university fraternities and sports teams, but it also has a long history in the military, police forces, rescue services and even some service clubs.
A 1999 study by researchers at Alfred University in western New York state found that 80 per cent of U.S. college athletes had undergone some kind of hazing ritual. The researchers say that means more than a quarter of a million American athletes have experienced hazing - and only 20 per cent of them said the ritual involved "acceptable activities."
According to that study, hazing includes:
"… Any activity expected of someone joining a group that humiliates, degrades, abuses or endangers, regardless of the person's willingness to participate. This does not include activities such as rookies carrying the balls, team parties with community games, or going out with your teammates, unless an atmosphere of humiliation, degradation, abuse or danger arises."
What types of activities are involved in hazing?
The range in activities is wide.
In August 2005, a member of McGill University's football team quit the team after he complained that he - and other rookies - were subjected to a nude hazing ritual in which they were gagged and forced into a degrading position and prodded with a broom handle. Six weeks later, the school cancelled the team's final two games of the season and said everyone behind the incident would be required to do two years of community service.
In Windsor, a 16-year-old rookie with the Ontario Hockey League's Windsor Spitfires refused to take part in a hazing ritual known as the "sweat box." Four other rookies were forced to crowd into the washroom on the team bus - naked and with the heat turned up. The rookie later lost four teeth after one of the team's veterans hit him in the mouth with his stick during practice.
Other sports-related hazing rituals include:
- "Running the gauntlet," where the athlete is forced to run naked while being hit with a paddle.
- "Marshmallow races," in which nude participants are made to pick up marshmallows with their buttocks. Last person across the finish line is forced to eat the marshmallow.
- "The elephant walk" - again nude participants take turns tugging at each other's genitalia.
Heavy drinking is usually associated with fraternity house hazings. An American researcher - Hank Nuwer - has documented dozens of hazing-related deaths at American colleges and universities over the past decade.
Is it just a 'guy thing'?
No. Hazing also exists among women's groups.
Jay Johnson - a sports sociologist from Hamilton, Ont., who did his master's and PhD theses on hazing - says women's rituals tend to be more celebratory than those carried out by men.
"One group saw their initiation - their rookie party - as a time to celebrate," Johnson told CBC News Online. "Partly because being a woman and being part of a team is an initiation in itself. Women haven't had the opportunity to play team sports for that long."
Women, he said, also tend to allow people to opt out of their rituals. With men, it's "you come or we're going to make life miserable for you."
But there are also groups that believe they have to emulate men's hazing rituals. Some, he said, felt they had to go further.
"[They involved] sexualized games - simulated sex acts like being blindfolded and simulating fellatio," Johnson said. "In others, they put down plastic sheets and the participants had their hands tied behind their backs and had to root through three or four inches of whipped cream to dig out condoms and tampons buried in it."
Why do hazing victims go along with the acts?
Often there is no choice. It's understood that it is a rite of passage and a part of the process of becoming part of a team, part of a society.
Johnson says there are many layers that surround the culture of a particular team, or society. They all have a stake in protecting that culture, which is why so few hazing stories get out. Johnson says an athlete knows he will be ostracized by the team if the story gets out.
In 1996, he says, the coach of the University of Guelph hockey team kicked two players off the team for not taking part in a hazing ritual. The players showed up for practice one day and their equipment had been thrown out of the locker room.
"This belief that these players we see in the NHL are the best just isn't true," Johnson said. "A lot are cycled out beforehand, because they don't want to take part in this cycle of violence."
Is hazing common among professional athletes?
It is not uncommon. But it's usually much different.
The culture has changed at the professional level, Johnson said. Instead of being forced into the "sweat box" first year NHL players will be forced to pick up the tab after the team goes out to an expensive restaurant and racks up a bill of $10,000.
A popular hazing ritual for rookie pro baseball players is to force them to dress in women's clothing. In September 2004, a member of the Cleveland Indians was dressed as a cheerleader on the team bus on the way to the airport in Kansas City. Someone fired a shot at the bus and the bullet lodged in the player's high white boot.
In 2000, San Diego Chargers veterans tied a rookie to a pole and threw eggs at him. Several veterans on the New Orleans Saints once released an armadillo in a rookie's room in the dark. The rookie woke up terrified when he heard something shuffling under his bed.
"By the time [players] make it to the big show, they've gone through anywhere from one to four initiations," Johnson said.
Are there alternatives to hazing?
Absolutely.
Johnson studied more than 700 athletes over two years and accompanied some of them on other activities aimed at team building, including canoe trips, adventure trips and rope exercises.
"[These events] were centred on trust, they were democratic. They eliminated the hierarchy that is built into most teams," Johnson said.
"It was more effective than traditional hazings, which are founded on degradation and abuse, which can plant the seeds of resentment between veterans and rookies. The trust is never there. The like is never there."
Johnson says it is possible to change the culture - although it takes time. He says many universities have dealt with hazing by placing it under their general harassment guidelines.
He suggests that universities and other organizations adopt clear policies on hazing, clearly defining what is not acceptable and what consequences those who break the rules can expect.
McGill cancelled the final two games of the team's 2005 season - but that was never written down as the punishment for a hazing incident.
"Beyond that, there needs to be a policy of education that involves not just the players, but the coaches, as well," Johnson said. "They're often former players who have gone through the process, as well."
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