La Salle University Women's Soccer Hazing Claims Blown out of Proportion?

I'm like "So what?" In every organization the newest members are left doing the more unpleasant things. This young lady is in for a rude awakening when she gets into the workforce....That is NOT hazing what she describes.

As a college coach, I remember sitting through compliance meetings in which athletes heard the anti-hazing speech. I actually recall compliance officials and title ix experts telling us explicitly that making freshman perform jobs that needed to be done (such as carrying equipment) does not constitute hazing.

Yeah most of the claims are ridiculous. The only one that could potentially be hazing is the kicking soccer balls at the players.

I am sure they were bullying them. "Pick up everyone's trash" I mean, they almost certainly deliberately left trash around to do that. Who needs their trash picked up for them? You only do that if you are deliberately trying to have someone clean it up.

The game she is referring to is called "Keep Away" or 5 v 2...it starts with the 2 youngest players on the team in the center of the circle while the players on the outside of the circle make passes to each other and try to avoid their pass being intercepted. If a pass is intercepted, the player who made the errant pass replaces the player in the middle and play resumes. It has been played at EVERY level of soccer I have EVER seen and is used as a warm up activity.

I suppose it depends on how it is played. Do the rookies stay in the middle? Are the passers firing balls at them, not really trying to pass? Were the players on the outside all kicking at the same time? How close are they? Coach sounds like a jerk for letting the game get nasty. I played soccer as a teen, way back, never played this.

donairs wrote:

Coach sounds like a jerk for letting the game get nasty. I played soccer as a teen, way back, never played this.

Maybe that's why you were never really good at soccer. The best players in any sport go through extremely tough trials.

Kobe pushed himself to take 500 shots at basketball practices to master his shooting technique.

That's not hazing.

That's being a part of a team.

I played soccer in college. We played Big Circle everyday for the first two weeks of practice. Pounded the sh*t out of the frosh. We made the frosh do everything for us. Even made them carry the equipment bags and then bring food to the equipment manager.

There was nothing brutal about it. We all went through it when we were freshman and it was a way of initiation into the crew. It also taught us all to respect everyone: trainers, equipment managers, janitors, coaches, and players.

We never had any complaints because (a) it was always done lightheartedly and if anyone every truly looked like they were getting hurt or psychologically damaged, we stopped and (b) we always couched it within the context of learning what EVERYONE does to make the team successful: what the janitor does, what the team cooks do, what the nutritionists do, what the trainers do, what the equipment managers do, etc.

By the end of the first month of practices all of our players had the utmost respect and appreciation for every member of our organization: from the ball girls/boys on the sidelines to the head coach.

Maybe LaSalle had different goals in their "hazing" or maybe they just did it in a much nastier way. But none of what is written seems excessive or even crosses the line into proper "hazing" in my opinion.

hazerI wrote:

I am sure they were bullying them. "Pick up everyone's trash" I mean, they almost certainly deliberately left trash around to do that. Who needs their trash picked up for them? You only do that if you are deliberately trying to have someone clean it up.

Agree. Where is the equality? Equals on the field but not off? This constitutes bullying AND hazing. If hazing is physical, then being required to carry someone else's bag IS hazing.

Coach running a super sloppy program, especially for 2019.

'Tough trials' sometimes just means putting up with someone's bullcrap. The toughest thing to do, sometimes, is to call them out on it and blow the whistle.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

donairs wrote:

Coach sounds like a jerk for letting the game get nasty. I played soccer as a teen, way back, never played this.

Maybe that's why you were never really good at soccer. The best players in any sport go through extremely tough trials.

Kobe pushed himself to take 500 shots at basketball practices to master his shooting technique.

I'm sure is was very tough to try to convince Kobe to shoot more...

Mal Odorous wrote:

Agree. Where is the equality? Equals on the field but not off? This constitutes bullying AND hazing. If hazing is physical, then being required to carry someone else's bag IS hazing.

Coach running a super sloppy program, especially for 2019.

Yeah! Everyone is equal on the field! Enough of these suppressing rules about the keeper being allowed to use their hands, but no one else is allowed. Equality for all!

Hey, hey, ho, ho, these suppressive rules have to go! Hey, hey, ho, ho, we want to use our hands some mo'! Hey, hey, ho, ho!

Players are not equal on the field. They are not equal off the field. Same goes for people in the office, people in society, etc.

Equality is not the argument here.

donairs wrote:

'Tough trials' sometimes just means putting up with someone's bullcrap. The toughest thing to do, sometimes, is to call them out on it and blow the whistle.

Yep. As a surgical resident, I would bet that I know more than the OP about enduring “tough trials” in an effort to improve. Working long hours, practicing to exhaustion, and doing some relative grunt work can be legitimate parts of self improvement. Being left without sufficient food just because someone thinks it’s fun to “put you in your place” is not.

If a lunchtime conference was my only chance to eat in the middle of a long shift, and I was told that residents are required to eat last and then everyone else ate all the protein before I was allowed to eat, I would raise hell and make sure the situation never repeated. If someone expected me to clean up their own personal mess because they were a year ahead of me, I would waste no time in telling the to get fvcked.

Luckily, this kind of thing doesn’t actually happen much in the adult world because people with even a hint of leadership ability realize that it does nothing to improve team dynamics.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

I'm like "So what?" In every organization the newest members are left doing the more unpleasant things. This young lady is in for a rude awakening when she gets into the workforce....That is NOT hazing what she describes.

I

In what company are the newest members allowed to eat only the scraps left behind by the most senior members?

Quick, you need to message Derek with this thread!

I think the food one is the only one that crosses the line. Freshman carrying bags is pretty common everywhere. But not leaving food for your teammates is hazing. More importantly you're hurting your team. Must be why they are a losing team. Any winning team builds up each other.

sbeefyk2 wrote:

I think the food one is the only one that crosses the line. Freshman carrying bags is pretty common everywhere. But not leaving food for your teammates is hazing. More importantly you're hurting your team. Must be why they are a losing team. Any winning team builds up each other.

They were left food, just not as much, hence scraps. For example, if a meat, fruit and cracker tray was served the seniors got dibs on all of the meat. If any was left over, the freshman split the remaining or they just eat fruit and crackers...That's hardly any different than being in a corporation where the executives get the bigger and better portions at company luncheons. Executives might get a full breakfast while lower rung people get donuts and fruit.

You're on the same team but seniority brings with it added privileges.

Only in the First World is the stuff described in this story hazing....

What kind of shitty company do you work for where the executives show up at a luncheon, jump to the front of the line, and only leave scraps for everyone else? No one who is a halfway decent leader would do this. Hell, even crappy CEOs/presidents I've worked for wouldn't do this.

Anyway, according to your own quote, they are talking about meals between preseason games. You're saying it's okay to have athletes play multiple games with just fruit and crackers as a meal in between? It isn't like they are in a situation where they can just get their own food.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Seriously, none of this amounts to true hazing and I think the team facing penalties is ridiculous.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7795723/Womens-soccer-team-placed-probation-hazing-probe.html

During meals between preseason games, Miller-People said the upperclassmen would eat first and leave just scraps of food without protein for the freshmen.

In another allegation, Miller-People said the older players made the freshmen stay behind to clean the team bus, pick up everyone's trash, and carry equipment bags through the campus by themselves in the dark.

'I just remember I wanted to go home a lot,' she said. 'This wasn't what I expected it to be.'

Hazing if done to the appropriate level can actually be a good bonding experience and path to acceptance on a college team. The truth is a freshman who goes off on hazing and makes it a big issue was never going to make it on a competitive team. If they weren't hazed there would have been some other reason they would have found to blame their problems on other than their own immaturity.

The reality is as a freshman unless you are the rare exception coming in as the superstar you are at the bottom of the totem pole. Sometimes you get a young kid who comes in with an ego and needs to be reminded of their standing.