I think the team should be able to bond in a natural way, through their training and in the course of their daily lives lived together as students and athletes. They do not need to go out of their way to create difficulties or obstacles or hazing rituals for new members of the group. They will be tested simply in their adjustment to the team norms and expectations. It is absolutely the coaches responsibility to be sure that new members of the group are treated humanely. Any other treatment, such as what is described with these UVA swimmers, is beyond what is necessary or acceptable for strong and cohesive teamwork.
Count me in the “just say no” crowd, too. Why on Earth would someone join an organization that exploited you for days or weeks on end? That’s how I felt in college and that’s how I feel today. Membership in a Fraternity is supposed to be special, not a “Dateline” investigation of a ruckus, or worse, a crime.
LakeWashington, this was a swim team. The swim team should be open to the best swimmers and not to those who are willing to put up with hazing.
The UVa swim coach , Augie Busch, is the son of Frank Busch, 6 time NCAA coach of the year and the coach of the 2004 and 2008 Olympic teams. Neither of my kids were swimmers, so have no clue about swim culture in general.
I agree with what JHS is saying. I also think sometimes people just don’t “fit in” or just don’t “get along”. Eating goldfish, juvenile male crotch grabbing, dying one’s hair, shaving one’s body, swirliles, drinking foul substances…none of them are life altering and all of these sorts of things can be managed through peer pressure and/or administration and/or the coach and don’t require the services of lawyers and police. I had one swimmer among my three and that group when he participated in swimming did seem to get involved in more group team building activities ( as a nice way of putting it) many named in my second sentence. I didn’t “hear” about it much from the other kids’ sports so maybe it’s a swim thing just like their are “band” things. The coaches attitude makes me wonder if the kid was a non-fit in more than one way. I sincerely hope that he is happier at his new college. I don’t think that excuses all the proclaimed activities or abuses or stealing etc. but in the grand scheme of things I have to wonder why the coach said what he said.
Team building should be constructive not destructive.
If somebody grabs my crotch, that person may get a baseball bat smashed on the top of his head. I view the grabbing as an assault.
I don’t think the team building can be all ‘let the best swimmers swim.’ A team needs a lot of different talents, and the coaches have picked the new members with a certain purpose in mind, but the rest of the team can’t always see that. They are competitive, they want to show their superiority to these new swimmers. The coaches are pushing everyone, and trying to get them to work as a team. There is infighting with the team. The coach has some ‘team building’ activities that are often contests in other sports events and may level the playing field a little, but it is not the same as when the girls go out themselves and just socially get organized.
A strong, mature team captain can be a big help to a coach IF the team respects the captain.
I wonder if it might help if at the beginning of each season (in any sport), the coach and captain would have a team meeting (with upperclassmen as well as freshman) and outline the things that cross the line that are considered hazing and will not be tolerated. The team should have opportunities to bond without adult interference, but there should be clear boundaries and consequences established .
I’ve been a part of a LOT of different teams in my nearly two decades of playing sports. I count many of my former teammates among my closest friends. Weirdly enough, none of else felt the need to humiliate or endanger each other in order to bond.
There are sports that are as much individual as they are team. Meaning the team members have to compete against each other in addition to other teams as a group. I think these types of teams have issues and dynamics that are somewhat different from other sports. I always thought swimming was especially different, because the team members do not speak, or interact at all, while competing. All of my kids swam on swim teams but none competed in college.
I came across this about hazing, romani, Women in athletics seem to be less at risk for unacceptable forms of hazing so that may be part of why you have have been lucky. The most at risk ,according to this study/survey are males- swimmers, lacrosse, and soccer players in particular. My sons were volleyball, baseball, and basketball kinds of guys so that may be why I didn’t hear about any major hazing , http://www.alfred.edu/sports_hazing/mostatrisk.cfm
I do agree with that sevmoom. I also think a good coach could try to salvage a situation where a recruited athlete was struggling with the team dynamics. I also think this is more prevalent in male sports. Women bond in different ways then men. And Bay I think you might have struck on something. One of my kids played team sports and the team dynamics were entirely different than the two that participated in tennis, golf and swimming. I never thought of it from the perspective of the person competing individually and as a team vs. the team as team where they have to out of necessity depend on each other.
No, the majority of people involved in orgs (even according to your link) do NOT partake in hazing rituals. Therefore, my experience was actually the majority.
Pretty sad when we use language like “lucky” to indicate that someone hasn’t been involved in hazing… what’s that say about our culture (apparently especially the culture of young male athletes)?
I did both team and individual sports. I have a cousin who did both a D1 individual and team sport. No hazing at either one (though she is a female).
romani, I may have used a poor choice of words when I said “lucky” but I do think that the dynamics are different in general between sports . I certainly do not condone hazing. The most I recall my kids ever saying they had to do was carry the main equipment, fill water bottles,etc. for the older guys-pretty innocuous stuff. Not all teams with “young male athletes” do any major hazing.
In the case of the UVa swimmers, the 5 guys in the civil suit were from all over (as UVa recruits nationally). It might be interesting to know what kinds of programs they came from as some of them must have thought what they were doing was okay and would not get them into trouble. Obviously, they thought wrong.
“I don’t think the team building can be all ‘let the best swimmers swim.’ A team needs a lot of different talents, and the coaches have picked the new members with a certain purpose in mind, but the rest of the team can’t always see that. They are competitive, they want to show their superiority to these new swimmers.” Swimming is a lot different than most sports. There is nothing subjective about how well you assist or pass or anything like that. You have a time. That is it. It’s completely clear who is superior. And it is all about let the best swimmers swim, even at age 4 or 5 when they first start. The fastest kids get the most races, the choice lanes, a spot on the relay team, etc.
In any case, there is no excuse for the alleged behavior of those swimmers. My kids participated in swimming, band, and other sports with no hazing. The kids were generally friendly and supportive with a lot of team spirit. Hazing is not normal, it is sick.
I don’t agree that swimming is just about the times. Sometimes the best swimmer can win in any one of 4-5 different events, and the coach can assign which he/she will swim that meet. There is politics in opening up a spot in the 50 free which my child might swim or the 100 back which another child might swim. They aren’t just swimming laps to get faster on their own, but encouraging each other, to win together, to relieve the boredom, to have fun. If it was all based on stats, they could just swim on their own at any time of the day. They enter as a team, not as a bunch of individuals. Missy Franklin gave up a lot of money to swim in college because she wanted the team experience, not just to swim to get the best lane or on the relay team. She must have felt the team experience was worth millions, because that’s what she gave up.
Can there be no hazing? Of course.
I don’t think boys are worse than girls. Physical hazing? Yes, males are probably worse, but girls can be catty and mean and vengeful and that can be worse than swallowing a goldfish. Ask the UMBC girls who used to be on the lacrosse team.
This is a naive and very simplified view of college athletics. Like in all timed, speed sports, the fastest athlete in one meet is not always the fastest in the next, or even any other meets. And adaptation to college life can have a huge impact on an athlete’s performance. Plus, athletes get sick and injured, so coaches have to make subjective calls about who to put in at each meet, and there are only so many meets for the athletes to compete in. When you get to D1 college athletics, you are also talking about the most intensely competitive amateur athletes in the country. Their competitive personalities will spill over into protecting their position on the team. Upperclassmen often feel threatened by incoming freshmen. It is inevitable, and actually a good thing for performance, but not so good for member-member relations.
Exactly. Not always --but often true. I witnessed this when my S was a freshman in a new high school and played varsity hockey. There were a couple of players that probably should not have been on the team, but we later surmised were there because their mere size made them useful in certain situations. The better players welcomed my S, but these other guys often roughed him up during practices. Didn’t seem to bother S or DH but it really irritated and concerned me. It obviously bothered the head coach as well as he put a stop to it. S asked me if I had said anything to the coach, which I hadn’t, but it was nice to know he had his eye on this sort of thing. This is where I think Busch fell short. That’s part of his job.
Not to diminish what went on with your son,@HarvestMoon1, as I would be upset too, but I think once the kids are off living at college, there are many more opportunities and places for the hazing to take place. The “welcome week” happenings seemed to go on at an off grounds home dubbed the “swim house”, and I’m sure Busch wasn’t invited to that!
I do think it was up to him to set the tone that hazing wouldn’t be tolerated, and maybe he did. We don’t know. Maybe it is no coincidence that only 2 of the 5 players would go on to swim again at UVA once the one semester suspension was lifted, and 2 others transferred to UM. Not trying to defend him, but I just wanted to note that this was just Busch’s second season at UVA. Possibly he inherited a team that had a deep history and culture of “team bonding” “social activities”. I’m pretty sure that UVA DOES have a clear anti hazing policy, and that all students KNOW what crosses the line. Yet it continues to happen anyway, and not just on the swim team. A year or so ago, UVA revoked the charters of two frats for hazing. And, my gut tells me that while there were probably certain incidents that led directly to that, that it wasn’t the first time those types of incidents happened there either. I think kids are pretty good at hiding what they want to remain hidden. I’m not meaning to bash on UVA at all, as I know this sort of stuff goes on everywhere. My point is it is probably not so easy to put an end to it if it is rooted deep in the culture of a group.
I do think UVA handled it appropriately once it became known (turning it over to the prosecutor to determine if criminal charges were warranted, investigating internally to determine if their own code of conduct was broken, and once they determined it was, doling out the appropriate punishment). The key is that they have to find out about it, someone has to tell. And even though it wasn’t the plaintiff who initially informed the coach (articles said that came from someone outside of the university community), it sounds like (from what I understand from the articles I read about the suit) that the boy faced continued harassment from the 5 after the initial incident, which is why he couldn’t practice with the team. I can only guess that maybe the 5 assumed the notification somehow came from him, or that this particular boy may actually have told the dean the full ugly truth when asked about the night in question, while they believed the other victims did not.
As far as the coach saying he couldn’t protect the kid, the context of that is not clear to me. Obviously, he SHOULD protect ALL his swimmers in the pool area and official team functions from hazing or anything else. But in reality, it is true HE personally couldn’t ensure this boy’s safety outside of the pool. I’m certain that UVA also has something in their code of conduct against harassment. And for all we know, UVA did investigate that aspect thoroughly too, and took appropriate measures there too against the 5 if warranted. We just will never know, due to privacy rules surrounding these types of investigations. But, I don’t think Busch or the UVA administration took any of this lightly.
Every sports team has some form of hazing (although most are not even close to this level) Carrying equipment, paying for dinner, being a practice dummy, etc. As long as it doesn’t overstep personal boundaries like in this situation it is not a problem.