Needham Girls HS Hazing

[Unregistered]

I think we can boil this down to the following

4) Dope slap of the year award, parent or parents go to court. The BEST you could have hoped for is that the kids got to play and were humiliated in the press once someone caught wind of it which was guaranteed as soon as you filed papers. To you, Mr Parent of the Year Lawyer the importance of your daughter and her teammates playing in a District Game was more important that the public ridicule these misguided children have had to face. Bravo, you have the intellect of an eye-dropper !

Naw, too wordy. How about:

Feelings of entitlement dulled their judgement and heaped additional ridicule on their children.

[Unregistered]

I still claim nobody would be talking about this outside of Needham without somebody filing a petition for an injunction. .

Agree. One or two parents have made this a public embarrassment for everyone involved. I gotta believe there are at least a couple of Needham parents who are furious with their daughters for participating and are embarrassed by the behavior, and accept the tournament playing ban (if not the suspensions, which might be challenged on an individual basis).

[Unregistered]

"That’s all the more reason why the parents should have cooperated with school officials, in a true community spirit, to obtain a full explanation and a just outcome. The pending playoff game wasn’t important enough to justify such an extreme reaction by so many adults, whose decisions in seeking an injunction served to teach their daughters less about truth and justice than about pride and petulance."

Once again, a point that even the editorial staff at the Globe is missing, the injunction was filed by one parent, a parent of one of the hazed freshmen who didn't believe the punishment fit the crime. The initial report with it's inaccuracies coming from WBZ has snowballed.

People, it is very dangerous to base your opinions on what is written by today's journalists without viewing all sides of the argument. The days of Walter Cronkite and fair and accurate reporting are long behind us. Our society is very much troubled because of this. Just look at the political climate. Today it's all about the money and "gotcha" reporting and in this case the target of the "gotcha" reporting appear to be 17 year old girls.

[Unregistered]

Some anonymous poster appears to be a Needham parent who likes digging a deeper hole. On the other hand, if the anonymous poster is trying to lampoon a Needham parent, then this last post is brilliant.



Until I can find the petition for an injunction on line, I will go with the local news report, which reads parents of...

I still claim nobody would be talking about this outside of Needham without somebody filing a petition for an injunction. Somebody, who was smart enough to hire a lawyer, or smart enough to be a lawyer himself, filed without thinking about the impact it would have.

This anonymous poster has an ax to grind: I am tired of rich people manipulating bureaucracies to their advantage. Your attempt to carve out special treatment for your children failed horribly this time. Admit your failure and move on.

Poor Brockton, they probably wanted to play a competitive match.

I am not a Needham parent, but somewhere back in the 50 pages of posts I saw the actual injunction, probably by a link. It was written Todd White vs Principal Pizzi or whatever his real name is.

[Unregistered]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ed..._Opinion_links

Can someone tape this to every light post in the town? This is right on.

[Unregistered]

You would have done what instead?

Probably detentions, a one day suspension at most.

[Unregistered]

Rumors

I heard one of the parents from Brockton snitched on Needham

[Unregistered]

OK, let me get this straight...

Kids on soccer team do something stupid.

Parents go to court to prove stupidity was genetic.

Players forced to miss game, Students facing suspension, Young adults may face college admission issues, Parents look like complete idiots and the ONE person in this whole episode that should be standing in front of it all accepting full responsibility with a "buck stops here" attitude is secluded at home on paid vacation.

Great gig if you can get it

Anyone who has any respect at all for this man going forward is seriously misguided and potentially delusional.

[Unregistered]

I heard one of the parents from Brockton snitched on Needham

How did Brockton know about it???????????/

[Unregistered]

I don't disagree that the punishment may or may not be too harsh. But that is an issue to take up with the school administration, and it may vary from girl to girl depending on individual circumstances. I work closely as a parent coordinator with the principal of our public high school and see the struggle and hours and hours of work he puts in to make sure every aspect of student discipline is investigated and fair. I have no idea how the Needham high school system works but it's ultimately up to them. There is no doubt, however, that every girl on the team has been informed of the anti-hazing policies.

And the way the gossip mill works, believe me, the administration would have heard about this incident by means other than the press.

As an aside, the coach has a responsibility to know about this stuff and to discuss the rules and regs prior to the season; he should be gone IMO.

Legitimate points, but it still appears that what prompted the punishment was the WBZ report and as a result an obvious over reaction to cover one's *** now that the media was involved. Prior to that point, the gossip mill was not prompting any response from the administration.

[Unregistered]

Can someone tape this to every light post in the town? This is right on.

Couldn't agree more.

As an aside, just saw news coverage of lots of laughing, happy prep school students at some school in PA, i think, having "the world's largest pie fight." EVERYONE was on the giving and receiving end of pies in a messy, fun school-wide pie fight. Wouldn't that have been a better way of team-bonding. What happened in Needham was hazing, not fun.

[Unregistered]

I believe the administration addressed in on Friday and suspended the team from meeting over the weekend. This was in advance of the media's involvement

[Unregistered]

I believe the administration addressed in on Friday and suspended the team from meeting over the weekend. This was in advance of the media's involvement

Follow the timeline presented earlier. The school superintendent specifically stated that they found out a week after the incident on Thursday, Nov 4 via the media.

[Unregistered]

OK, let me get this straight...

Kids on soccer team do something stupid.

Parents go to court to prove stupidity was genetic.

Players forced to miss game, Students facing suspension, Young adults may face college admission issues, Parents look like complete idiots and the ONE person in this whole episode that should be standing in front of it all accepting full responsibility with a "buck stops here" attitude is secluded at home on paid vacation.

Great gig if you can get it

Anyone who has any respect at all for this man going forward is seriously misguided and potentially delusional.

NFHS Code of Ethics (Coaches):
...
Function is to educate students (extension of classroom)
...


Therefore, henceforward, until they can prove the Pythagorean Theorem, the calculus class will lead the algebra students through the lunchroom on leashes.


Even if the school gives the idiot his job back, the dude should be banned by NFHS.

[Unregistered]

You're right Cujo, the 30 rack should have gone unpunished and maybe the next 30 rack could have resulted in him killing someone else. Get a clue

Wow. How about capital punishment for possession of beer? The beer was in a dorm. You cannot punish for a PRESUMED CONSEQUENCE. He did not drink and drive. Why do you people have so much trouble understanding that punishment and justice should be metered out in proportion to the violation. Not every transgression a 17 year old commits merits equal punishment. At least in the world of the sane.

I guess ruining somebody's life over a 30 rack of beer at a dorm party makes sense to you. What do you think about Spader getting life? Maybe probabtion or a suspended sentence?

- Cujo