High school football team cancels season after hazing

School officials canceled a Doylestown, Pennsylvania high school’s football season and suspended the team’s coaches on Thursday following allegations of hazing, including forcing of a new player to grab another player’s genitalia and the so-called “waterboarding” of new recruits, according to the local Intelligencer newspaper.

Central Bucks High School West, home to a four-time state champion football team, scrapped the last two games of its season due to allegations of “improper conduct” of some football players, the newspaper said.

“Based on all available, verified information gathered from an ongoing internal investigation into allegations of improper conduct by numerous Central Bucks West Football team members, and the failure of coaching staff to properly supervise activities, swift and firm action is absolutely necessary,” said Central Bucks School District Superintendent David Weitzel in a release.

During summer training, a new football player was allegedly forced to grab the genitalia of another fully clothed player in front of the rest of the team as an initiation rite, The Associated Press reported.

In addition, police are investigating allegations that older players put towels on the heads of younger players and led them to the showers, the Intelligencer said. Central Bucks Regional Police Chief James Donnelly described the hazing using the word “waterboarding,” a term he said was given to him by detectives who interviewed the high school principal, the newspaper reported.

But Donnelly said he didn’t consider the hazing as fitting the actual definition of waterboarding, a form of torture that simulates drowning by forcing the victim to attempt to breathe through a wet cloth placed on his or her face.

"I want to be clear that these activities did not result in physical harm, but were not harmless," Weitzel wrote in a statement. "Our inquiry determined that students new to the team were expected to participate in several initiations that were both humiliating and inappropriate.”

Donnelly told the Intelligencer that investigators are going to reexamine the hazing allegations to see whether criminal activity occurred, and that the local district attorney’s office is helping with the investigation. The school became of aware of the allegations on Oct. 14, after which school officials shared the information with law enforcement, the Intelligencer said.

The office of Central Bucks High School West Principal Jason Bucher declined to comment. A call to the athletic department went unreturned.

A representative from the superintendent’s office said school officials would hold a question and answer session about the incidents on Tuesday at the school district’s next meeting.

The football season at Sayreville War Memorial High School in New Jersey was also canceled and football coaches were suspended earlier this month when allegations surfaced of players hazing each other, in some cases involving sexual assault.