Issue date: 2/20/07 Section: News

Athletics Director Terry Wanless [Click to enlarge]

Each member of the women's soccer team will be suspended for one game next season as a result of events that occurred at a December "rookie" party, a player from the team told The State Hornet.

The player, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the team will forfeit a game next season. She also said next season could be canceled, pending an investigation by Student Affairs.

"We have to wait for the whole investigation to go through until we find out the rest of our punishment," she said on Monday in a telephone interview.

Athletics Director Terry Wanless did not return calls from The State Hornet last week. Wanless was out of town on Tuesday for a Division I Football Championship Committee meeting in Albuquerque, N.M. A department spokesperson said no suspensions have been announced.

A junior player said alcohol was at the party but that the new team members, who were dressed up in costumes, were not forced to drink.

In the six photos that The State Hornet obtained of the party from the social networking website Facebook, it is not clear whether alcohol was involved. Only six out of the 26 players were of legal drinking age at the time of the party.

In one photo, eight new members are dressed in costume, including a freshman defender wearing a cardboard box, with a flap in the front of the crotch area stating "Lift Here." Two players are wearing sombreros. A penis and testicles are drawn on the throat of a redshirt forward, and a freshman goalkeeper and a freshman midfielder are wearing yellow headbands with "Sarah's bitch" written on them. All players had ink writing on their faces.

Former midfielder Katie Rorabaugh, who transferred to Azusa Pacific University, said on Feb. 12 that the idea to dress up in costumes and draw on each other were not the freshmen's.

The player who spoke to The State Hornet on Monday said the Athletics Department doesn't provide a clear definition of hazing.

"(They) just said, 'Don't do it. Don't do anything near it,'" she said. "I think we've learned a lesson. We're never going to do anything close to it again, because we don't want any of our games taken away or even a season, if it comes down to that."

President Alexander Gonzalez said he has not directly been involved with the investigation but that it is being managed well.

"It is being handled appropriately by Student Affairs and the Athletics Director," Gonzalez said via e-mail on Saturday, adding that he could not respond to the situation until a resolution has been made.

Director of Student Conduct Leonard Valdez of Student Affairs said on Monday that he could not comment on whether the events were deemed as hazing and that he has not penalized the team.

"I haven't acted on any information that has come to me and won't until there has been a determination made on my part," Valdez said in a telephone interview.

Valdez was shown two photos of the December party on Feb. 8 and said the photos could potentially be considered hazing but that he needed to know the context of the event.

Valdez said he will determine whether the team violated student conduct codes based on policies set by the CSU trustees.

According to the California Education Code, hazing includes any initiation activity by members of a student organization likely to cause physical or mental harm. Even if a student willingly submits to the action, the activity is still hazing.

"Neither the express or implied consent of a victim of hazing, nor the lack of active participation while hazing is going on is a defense," the code states.

The player who spoke to The State Hornet on Monday said dressing in costume was a choice and that she allowed other players to draw on her body with markers.

"I think they should find that it is not hazing because I enjoyed it, and I was supposedly being hazed," the player said.

Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton said the conference doesn't take a philosophical position on hazing that differs from those listed by the NCAA and the universities. Fullerton said he read the Tuesday story posted on the website but that he hadn't spoken with anyone at Sacramento State.

He said the photos were worth investigating.

"It would really lead one to believe that they better look into it," Fullerton said in a telephone interview. "Who knew? Who didn't know? Who did this? Were they told? Was hazing described to them? Did they have a class on it?

"I don't know the answers to any of those questions, so for me to say, 'Yes, it is hazing; yes, this is something. It should be punishable.' I don't know that. I wouldn't know that unless I were investigating it. If you're asking me if pictures like that could that be hazing? Yeah, it could."

Fullerton said if an investigation concludes that players were hazed, upperclassmen could face punishments ranging from education on hazing to season cancellation and that freshmen could even be punished.

Said Fullerton: "In a case where you've all been told there will be no hazing incidents of any kind, and some of the people on the team, say, 'We're not going to listen to him. We're going to have a party and we're going to do hazing.' The people who are going to be hazed say, 'Sounds like fun. We're going to go along with it.' Are they just as complicit? Possibly."

Comments on The State Hornet's website questioned whether the events were considered hazing since no one was injured.
Valdez said the university takes cases that could be considered hazing even when there is no harm done.

"We try to catch it early so that we don't have an incident where someone does get hurt," Valdez said. "No one does things where they purposely set out to hurt someone," he said, noting the death of Matthew Carrington, a former Chico State student. Carrington died as a result of drinking excessive amounts of water.

"It was not something that people thought could present a danger to someone," Valdez said about the Chico incident. "Obviously, that was wrong. We don't know outside any situation how a person's body might react to alcohol, all sorts of things."

When Wanless saw the photos from the Hornet on Feb. 8, he could not confirm whether the events proved to be hazing, but he did say it could be deemed inappropriate.

"Not having seen these before, I don't really want to comment one way or the other," Wanless said. "Obviously, they would be inappropriate. No question about that. Whether this is considered hazing is obviously a different route."

Valdez said the university is not out to act as "big brother" and stop students from having a good time but that his department does look at cases that are brought to them.

"We're not trying to take away people's fun. I don't have a Facebook. I'm not looking at Facebooks. I'm not looking for these things," Valdez said. "But when things come forward, they will hear from us."

Valdez said people need to be aware that websites such as Facebook are considered open forums and that students who violate student conduct policies should grow from their punishments.

"In terms of the whole concept of student conduct code, it's to allow students to grow from that experience and make changes of their behavior," Valdez said.

Nika Megino and Nate Miller can be reached at
news@statehornet.com.

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