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Eagle-Tribune
Lawrence, MA
December 16, 2001

Looking through the haze

By Jennifer D. Jordan and Krista Zanin
Eagle-Tribune Writers

Lizzie Murtie was just a freshman in high school when the older girls on
her gymnastics team took her and three other freshman girls to the parking
lot of a local restaurant.

Surrounded by about 30 students, including a group of boys from a nearby
high school, the older girls ordered the 14-year-old and the three other
freshmen to kneel before a boy and eat a peeled banana stuck in his pants
zipper as part of a hazing ritual.

[picture]
Tara Donnelly (left), 19, a sophomore at UNH from Pelham, N.H., and UNH
sophomore Chelsey Caudill, 19, say they don't hear about hazing often on
the UNH campus because either it is not happening as often or students
aren't talking about it.
"They just called us by name and there was no time to respond or think,"
said Murtie, now an 18-year-old college student at Gordon College in
Wenham, Mass.

"If I didn't do it, I didn't know what would happen, if they'd beat me up
or what. I didn't know what hazing was until they told us that's what it
was," said Murtie, who was attending high school in Vermont at the time.
"And after, they threatened us and told us if we said anything, we'd be
thrown off the team."

Despite the passage of anti-hazing laws several years ago in both
Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and efforts by schools and colleges to
crack down on the practice, incidents continue to occur, including two
high-profile local cases.

Murtie's experience with hazing -- the forced initiation into a group or
sports team that can include everything from harmless pranks to physical
and sexual assaults -- is similar in its sexual overtones to a hazing case
involving football players from Pentucket Regional High School in West
Newbury, Mass.

The Essex County District Attorney's Office this week announced it was
launching a criminal investigation into the case after a group of football
players held down another player and shook their genitals in the student's
face.

The incident occurred this summer at a football camp in the White
Mountains. School officials suspended six students in connection with the
incident.

Last week, Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N.H., suspended the varsity
basketball coach for two weeks, kicked off two team members and suspended
two others after an incident that happened on Cape Cod three weeks ago.

Four students attempted to cover a teammate's head and tie him up with tape
while the boys were staying in a motel during the Nov. 30 trip. The student
was not injured in the incident, which was said to last less than a minute.

It's not clear if hazing in general is on the rise at Merrimack Valley and
Southern New Hampshire high schools and colleges because there is so little
research of the topic.

But experts say it will continue in part because initiation rites are
imbedded in the sports culture.

"It's something that's been going on forever and it's an accepted piece of
sport," said Adam Naylor, a sports psychology consultant and teacher at
Boston University. "Some coaches have been hazed themselves, and don't see
anything wrong with it. Sport tends to not learn anything new,
unfortunately."

One of the few national surveys on hazing, conducted by Alfred University
in New York in 1999, revealed that a majority of 325,000 college athletes
surveyed -- 250,000 students -- said they'd experienced some form of hazing
to join a college athletic team.

"Two-thirds were subjected to humiliating hazing, such as being yelled or
sworn at, forced to wear embarrassing clothing or forced to deprive oneself
of sleep, food or personal hygiene," according to the report.

Still, experts say different students react differently to hazing.

"It's all over the board, just like hazing behavior is varied," said Hank
Nuwer, an author who's written four books on hazing. "You have some people
who blossom after a haze, saying they wanted that bonding, that sense of
group, and you have others who are traumatized by what they go through."

But the motivation behind hazing is about "having power and control," said
Elizabeth Allan, who co-founded the information Web site
www.stophazing.org. "And with regard to hazing it's really the power
dynamics that are operating."

One answer might be the pressure young people face to follow what a group does.

"Part of the phenomenon of hazing involves the element of group-think,"
Allan, an assistant professor at the University of Maine in Orono, said.
"With peer pressure (a person may) tend to make decisions or act in ways
they wouldn't normally if they were alone."

Social pressures in high school are largely responsible for hazing behavior.

"It's a time where you've got to fit in and there's a lot of group
pressure," said Naylor. "As adults, we forget what it is like to be in high
school. It's very important in junior and senior year that you're a leader.
Kids want to, they're showing their power, just like every kid wants their
drivers licence because it's a sense of mythical power. You can't
underestimate how important social group is at this age."

Allan said there are numerous reasons why sexual violence is sometimes part
of hazing.

"Boys and men in particular are taught to be aggressive sexually; in other
words, they are often rewarded for having sex," Allan said. "Sexual
violence is one of the most humiliating and degrading violations that can
occur for someone, and it's really sexual assault, which is non-consensual
sexual behavior. Why that seems to be a focus or central to a number of
more recent hazing cases is a complex question."

Allan says there has been a marked increase nationwide in the number of
reported sodomy hazing cases taking place at the high school level with
males, but couldn't point to specific figures backing up her claim.

In addition, Nuwer said he's "absolutely convinced that the number of
sexual touching and violence is up."

"Either these incidents were terribly covered up in the past or they are
proliferating, but the number of reports is up," he said.

As for the sexual degradation that can occur, that may also be tied to the
age of young athletes, Naylor said.

"We're dealing with kids at the age where they're dealing with sexuality,
and their understanding of it is very different than ours," he said. "From
12 to 22, you're still exploring your sexual identity. These things to us
as adults are very bizarre, but to a kid they might see it as playing
around or being tough."

There are all types of hazing that occur on high school and college campuses.

Hazing today can mean "x-ing," where a student is smeared with human
excrement; paddling, where a student is spanked and struck on the buttocks
by fellow students; sodomy; or other forms of sexual degradation, Nuwer
said.

But area coaches and officials at Merrimack Valley and Southern New
Hampshire schools and college say they are cracking down on all types of
hazing as never before.

They cite the University of Vermont's decision to cancel the entire
1999-2000 hockey season when school officials discovered that some players
were forced to walk around holding team members' genitals.

Methuen (Mass.) High School's Athletic Director, Brian Eckhart, for
example, said he makes it clear to coaches and athletes that hazing is
against the law.

"People die from this," said Eckhart, who played baseball, soccer and
basketball in high school and wrestled in college. "I'm sensitive to the
trauma that individual kids experience from hazing, and as a director of
athletics, I want to make sure it's not happening at Methuen High School."

Officials and students at the University of New Hampshire say hazing
incidents are down dramatically in Durham. And Merrimack College in North
Andover, Mass., doesn't have any fraternity or sorority houses on campus.

They point to anti-hazing laws passed in both states for helping to change
the way officials and students deal with hazing.

Jack Stephenson, athletic director for North Andover High School said he
remembers no hazing in high school and college when he played sports,
beyond voluntary haircuts.

However, while a student at UNH, Stephenson said, he was hazed when he
entered a fraternity.

"It was more humiliation, like physical training while they throw water at
you and paddling," said Stephenson, who graduated UNH in 1971. "Or they'd
make you eat desserts with things like horseradish on it, things like that."

Stephenson had a solution for such behavior. When he became pledge trainer
for his fraternity, he eliminated hazing.

"How does this accomplish them wanting to be a part of the group?" asked
Stephenson. "It doesn't. It's not a way of building team camaraderie.
There's only one way to do that: respect. Respect for yourself, your
teammates, the coach, the rules of the game."

Stephenson said the old way of looking at hazing rituals as a rite of
passage has to be changed.

"Some people think it's normal, and boys will be boys -- there's no harm in
it," he said. "That's not true. You have to break it at one point and say,
'This is not the way to do it.' "

Merrimack College reports few problems with hazing, said Fred Kuo,
assistant director of student activities and adviser to fraternities and
sororities.

Only 120 of the college's 2,000 students are part of the Greek system, and
the college's three fraternities and three sororities merged with national
chapters just two years ago.

"We're kind of lucky," Kuo said. "We don't see a lot of the more
traditional problems here, and as far as I know, it's not going on here."

Kuo said the fact that there are no fraternity and sorority houses makes
alcohol use on an organizational level more rare.

In the last decade the attitude toward hazing at UNH has shifted
dramatically, according to students and staff members. Still, the
university continues to see student organizations using it to initiate new
members.

Stephen Pappajohn, UNH's director of Greek Affairs, said in addition to
more education programs, the university has taken a harder line on hazing
penalties.

For example, Alpha Xi Delta sorority was put on probation in early November
until December 2002 because older members had pledges dress up in bathing
suits that were worn outside their clothing. The women then ran from
chapter to chapter gathering items for a pledge event.

Pappajohn said the sorority might not have been put on notice five years
ago when awareness of the issue was different. They may have only had to
attend an education program.

"The awareness and the prevention have escalated since five years ago," he
said.

And from what students on campus said this week, stricter rules appear to
be taking hold.

Chris Habeck, 31, of Newmarket said he was surprised when a friend of his
pledging a fraternity said the only things he had to do to become a member
of the organization were wear a tie on Wednesdays and clean the fraternity
house.

"I was surprised," said Habeck, a UNH student. "I had friends when I got
out of high school who joined fraternities and it seemed like they were a
lot more subjected to ridicule."

Peter Tollefson, 20, a UNH junior and member of the ski team, said he
hasn't seen hazing at the school. He said when he was a freshman, the
upperclassmen held a party, but team members were told that drinking was
optional.

"There was no forcing whatsoever," Tollefson said. "What we had was one
party and it was optional. And if anyone didn't want to drink, they would
drink sodas."

Still Tollefson and his teammate, Robert Parker, 22, a UNH junior, said
they have heard stories of hazing at UNH that have included students being
forced to drink warm beer or eat lamb's tongue. They said they didn't know
if those stories were rumors or truth, but said regardless, UNH has cracked
down on hazing for good reason.

"I think they have to do what they have to do, and even if that means no
hazing," Parker said. "UVM made everyone realize that was the last time
anyone would be allowed to do that type of thing."

Alpha Tau Omega brothers Jeff Wagner, 20, and Daryl Ceruolo, 20, both UNH
juniors, wouldn't disclose what specifically goes on with those pledging
the fraternity. They both said no one is forced to do things they don't
want to do.

"Nothing is forced at all," Wagner said. He said when he was pledging his
fraternity, his brothers drove him to New Jersey to visit his mom, who was
at that time diagnosed with breast cancer.

They said both the university and their national chapter are extremely
vigilant about monitoring whether any hazing is going on in the fraternity.

"If one person takes something the wrong way, the entire fraternity can
suffer," Wagner said. "That's why you have to have anything voluntary."

Tara Donnelly, 19, a UNH sophomore from Pelham, N.H., said she doesn't hear
hazing being talked about that often because people are afraid of saying
anything for fear of getting into trouble.

"People are afraid of saying anything, but it's also not as bad as it used
to be," Donnelly said.

Chelsey Caudill, 19, a UNH sophomore, agreed.

"I don't hear a lot about it," Caudill said. "They are not very creative in
what they make people do. It's not as harmful (as it once was)."

Like many students victimized by hazing, Lizzie Murtie didn't say anything
to her parents.

She withdrew, stopped seeing friends, had uncontrollable crying jags and
would wake up in the middle of the night, remembering details of that night
she'd pushed out of her mind.

"I just wanted to forget. After it happened, I just had a mistrust of the
world and I felt very depressed," she said recently. "I was humiliated,
embarrassed. I didn't know what to do."

Six months after the hazing incident, her gymnastics coach called to say
the school had investigated the incident, but no one was ever punished.

"Schools don't want to do anything, because many times these kids are
academic leaders and athletes," said her mother, Linda Murtie.

After many months of therapy, Murtie slowly recovered, stayed at her school
and competed with the gymnastics team for two additional years.

She and her parents, Linda and George Murtie, pushed for anti-hazing
legislation in Vermont and were rewarded when the law finally passed in
2000.

"I feel a lot better now," Murtie said. "But I still remember what
happened. It's something I'll never forget. The only way for it to get
better is by talking about it, so kids know it's not OK."

(c) 2001 Eagle-Tribune Publishing.