Take a minute and reflect on what it means to be a team. Almost immediately the concept conjures up ideas of commitment, trust and, most importantly, an overall sense of togetherness between members. The metaphors are endless: some call it a brotherhood (or sisterhood); others go so far as to call it a family.
But this type of relationship doesn’t just happen overnight. There is a certain amount of bonding that needs to take place between teammates that goes beyond simply wearing the same jersey. To that effect, there are certain devices that coaches or players can use to speed up the bonding process.
That’s where initiations come in. These are attempts to build camaraderie, alleviate tension or nervousness, and raise teammates’ general comfort level around each other. These types of exercises exist at all levels of sport from high school to professional, and can be funny, embarrassing, or downright silly sometimes.
But the important thing to remember is, no matter how off the wall these endeavours may seem, there is always an underlying aim at building team chemistry in one way or another.
Hazing is where this idea is taken too far. It involves exploitation and abuse of power, all for the sake of a cheap thrill or hearty laugh. The question needs to be asked: how does a ritual hazing make a team better?
The answer is simple: it doesn’t.
If anything, it creates an even wider divide between the rookies who are tormented, or let’s face it, abused, and the veterans who inflict the punishment. The only bonding that takes place is between the veterans who planning the event, and between the rookies that endure it. When preaching togetherness and trust, something like this is completely counterproductive.
Enjoyment of these events is had strictly by the dominant veteran group-that is, until the rookies become veterans a year later and the cycle begins again with a fresh crop of unsuspecting victims. And that is how these rituals persist: based on the knowledge that those hazing you were hazed themselves, and one day, you will be in their shoes.
Bear in mind that the players at McGill were not the first to concoct or execute such a sick ritual act and probably won’t be the last. But we can hope that such an incident can create awareness and inform the institutions behind university sport that this kind of stuff takes place.
Or even better, perhaps this incident will inspire others to resist hazing and its ill effects in situations just like the recent one at McGill. Because more challenging than standing up in front of a blitzing linebacker or blistering slap shot is standing up for what you believe in.
-MATT VENTRESCA
Let me start off by saying I am so sick of it all. Initiations, hazings, and any other type of bullying just annoy the hell out of me. And that is exactly what every one of these rituals amounts to-bullying.
Building camaraderie and cultivating friendship and unity among teammates are integral parts to any unit’s success. But aren’t team dinners, parties, decent practical jokes, retreats, and pub nights enough? If one can’t feel comfortable among teammates after these social events, they probably won’t after any other activity either. Especially when that activity is violent and abusive.
Let me explain what I mean by decent practical jokes. Throwing a pie at someone’s face or covering a sleeping teammate’s face with shaving cream are examples of clean fun that will not torment an individual long after they finish their university days. Forcing a rookie lineman to stand against a wall and drop his pants, then proceeding to sodomize the poor victim-which is allegedly what happened at McGill recently-is far more scarring.
Just because a guy is a veteran member of a football team doesn’t mean he has to be a mean-spirited, domineering idiot like the perpetrators of the McGill hazing chose to be. Control, control, they must learn control!
I hope that charges are filed this time so that the the responsible parties are held accountable for their actions. Maybe that would prevent this sort of thing from happening again.
In closing I would like to ask two questions: since when was S & M a part of sports? And why can’t the perpetrators of such heinous acts save their violent fetishes for willing participants in their own private time?
In any other context, what allegedly happened at McGill would be considered R-A-P-E.
-MATT SOMERS
