Alleged Sayreville case legally might not be hazing

• The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office and Sayreville police continue to investigate allegations
• In November 2004%2C 3 Colonia High School varsity boys soccer players were charged with molestation
• 2000 study%3A An estimated 800%2C000 scholastic players per year were subject to some form of hazing
• Other incidents in Lodi%2C Lyndhurst%2C Holmdel%2C Holy Cross and Hasbrouck Heights

Should allegations of a "significant and serious nature" surrounding the Sayreville High School football program constitute hazing — which they might not under state law — those actions could be part of an underreported problem.

NJ Advance Media, citing numerous sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, has labeled whatever allegedly took place within the Sayreville football program as a hazing, while CBS-TV in New York has reported that the allegations were sexual in nature.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office and Sayreville police continue to investigate the allegations.

Sayreville will conduct a meeting for parents and guardians of its football players in the high school cafeteria tonight to discuss the gridiron program's immediate future. School officials have suspended play at all three levels since Thursday, when the allegations are believed to have come to light and Sayreville postponed (and later forfeited) that night's game against South Brunswick.

Whatever allegedly transpired inside the Sayreville football program, if proved, might constitute hazing or fall under New Jersey's Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, which provides a strong and thorough definition of bullying as a harmful action toward another student or any act that infringes on a student's rights at school.

The anti-bullying statute, which took effect in 2011, complements the anti-hazing law in terms of protecting student-athletes.

"The law does not specifically target bullying in terms of athletics," said Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D-Middlesex, who chairs the Assembly's Education Committee and who helped draft the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights.

"It deals with the entire school environment. The allegations, as I have heard in this particular case (at Sayreville), would fall under the language of the statute. I think there would be grounds (to prosecute under the statute) if law enforcement finds sufficient evidence to go forth."

Diegnan, in response to a MyCentralJersey.com inquiry, said he has asked the Office of Legislative Services whether it is necessary to expand the definition of hazing to include athletics.

"However," he said, "I believe it is covered under our anti-bullying law."

According to New Jersey State Criminal Statute 2C:40-3 HAZING: "A person is guilty of hazing, a disorderly persons offense, if, in conjunction with initiation of applicants to or members of a student or fraternal organization, he knowingly or recklessly organizes, promotes, facilitates or engages in any conduct, other than competitive athletic events, which places or may place another person in danger of bodily injury. A person is guilty of aggravated hazing, a crime of the fourth degree, if he commits an act (prohibited above) which results in serious bodily injury to another person.

Gregory Acquaviva, a Seton Hall University Law School graduate and chief of staff to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, wrote in a 2008 proposal to amend the state's anti-hazing statute, that "although the phrase 'student organization' may broadly encompass interscholastic athletics, the Act's textual reference to 'initiation' and the Act's legislative history may signal a narrow legislative intent that only contemplated hazing in the college fraternity and sorority context, not the hazing of student-athletes."

2004 Colonia soccer

It has been nearly a decade since a Middlesex County high school athletics program last endured an alleged hazing incident. Charges wound up being filed in that case, but not under the state's anti-hazing law.

In November 2004, three Colonia High School varsity boys soccer players were charged with molestation and two other players were charged with assault in locker-room attacks against two 16-year-old teammates.

Three of the 17-year-olds were charged as juveniles with aggravated criminal sexual contact "for the purpose of degrading and humiliating," criminal restraint and conspiracy (all third-degree charges), as well as assault (a disorderly persons charge). Two other players were charged with criminal restraint and assault.

One touched the teenager's bare buttocks "in the process of exposing him," according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, which released no further details about the incident.

Julia McClure, deputy first assistant Middlesex County prosecutor at the time, said the incident did not constitute hazing under New Jersey law because it did not involve a rite of initiation (coaches choose players for a roster before a season starts, players are not "initiated" onto a team).

McClure told The Star-Ledger at the time that because the players are all on the same team, and have been for the entire season, the alleged conduct did not "fit under my understanding of hazing, either by a criminal definition or a layman's definition."

Unlike Sayreville, whose allegations surfaced three games into the regular season, Colonia's incident occurred prior to a New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association tournament game, which the team won.

After the allegations came to light, Colonia forfeited its next contest, effectively ending its season, meaning school officials did not face the arduous task, as Sayreville does, of suspending the campaign while law enforcement investigates the allegations. The Bombers are scheduled to play Monroe on Friday night but might have to forfeit that game.

NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko released a statement Monday morning saying, "As it currently stands, this matter is one for the school district and law enforcement agencies to address. And Sayreville may determine its own football future. There are no NJSIAA rules requiring a member school to terminate an entire sports season due to forfeits."

It took a little more than a week for the Prosecutor's Office to file charges against the Colonia players. However, former Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Buck told MyCentralJersey.com that, depending on the circumstances, it could take weeks for authorities to wrap up their investigation into Sayreville's entire football program, whose participants more than quadruple Colonia's soccer roster.

Despite overwhelming support from virtually the entire parent booster club and Greater Middlesex Conference soccer community, Colonia did not rehire its head coach, whom supporters thought was not culpable in the alleged attack. Sayreville will have to make a similar decision regarding head football coach George Najjar should his players be charged.

Incidents might be underreported

According to a 2000 Alfred University study, believed to contain the most recent data regarding hazing among high school athletes, an estimated 800,000 scholastic players per year were subject to some form of hazing. The estimate was based on a survey of 10,000 athletes at 224 colleges nationwide who were asked about their scholastic playing experiences.

Allegations of hazing in high school football programs statewide are rare, with at least seven reported since New Jersey became one of what is now 44 states to enact an anti-hazing law 34 years ago.

F. Clark Power, a professor of liberal studies at the University of Notre Dame whose area of expertise includes sports and character education, said he believes the Alfred University estimate does not correlate with published reports of hazing because the act itself, which he said is designed to be secretive in nature, is underreported.

"We don't have enough good data to determine fluctuations in hazing behavior nationally," Power said. "The problem seems, to me, is it's very hard with these things to know how much hazing is going on. Unless it leaks somehow, we really don't have a good handle on it."

Coaches who survived scandals of hazing or harassment decades ago likely would not remain in their positions today, even if they had absolutely no knowledge of an incident taking place under their watch because anti-bullying laws and other legislation have created a "culture in which hazing is such a negative," Power said.

"Generally," Power said, "with hazing, the kids try to create some separation so that the coaches wouldn't know about it in many ways, because if they did, they probably wouldn't be too happy about what's going on."

New Jersey history

Pat Tirico, now in his 32nd season as Lodi High School's head football coach, was in his 10th season when about a dozen of his players pleaded guilty to harassment of a teammate, and each was sentenced to perform 50 hours of community service, according to a report in The Record of Hackensack.

The report said that Lodi football players, while attending a 1992 preseason football camp in Mansfield, bound a teammate with duct tape. They then smeared peanut butter, shampoo and shaving cream over his body, threw human feces at him and shaved off some of his hair.

Tirico, who now also serves as the high school's athletics director, declined an interview request for this story.

Coaches at Lyndhurst High School retained their positions after players on their team in 1988 allegedly forced a sophomore to sodomize a teammate with his finger while dozens of upperclassmen gawked, according to a Herald News report cited in Acquaviva's proposal to strengthen New Jersey's anti-hazing laws. Two upperclassmen were dismissed from the team and no coaches were disciplined, according to an ESPN.com report on the incident.

That same year, about 20 underclassmen from Holmdel High School's football team allegedly played a game of Twister nude as senior teammates encouraged and videotaped the activity, according to an ESPN.com report. Reportedly, the school's 85 football players were ordered to undergo mental health counseling, and some coaches were dismissed.

According to a Philadelphia Inquirer report, nine Holy Cross football players were charged with criminal sexual conduct and aggravated assault after a 1997 incident. "The athletes avoided court appearances after they agreed to mediation," the report said.

According to reports in The Record of Hackensack and at ESPN.com, police investigated allegations in 1995 that two seniors on the Hasbrouck Heights football team asked underclassmen to take a lap around the playing field without pants. ESPN.com reported that "family members asked the police and school to let the participants settle the problem themselves."

"I thought with all the attention and legislation, this is an issue that we would really not have to address, but it does keep coming up across the country and it won't go away," Power said.

Staff Writer Greg Tufaro: gtufaro@njpressmedia.com