This should have been homecoming weekend at Sayreville War Memorial High School in Sayreville, New Jersey. Instead, both the school and the city were rocked with the announcement that seven players on the school’s powerhouse football team are facing charges that they were among the worst offenders in a grisly hazing scandal. According to prosecutors, the seven players sexually assaulted their teammates in the locker room.
The arrests capped off a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad fortnight in an area where the atmosphere is among the closest in the Northeast to “Friday Night Lights.” The Sayreville Bombers have been a juggernaut in New Jersey football, winning three state titles in the last four years. It has also become a pipeline of talent for Rutgers, located only 20 minutes west; three former Bombers are on the Scarlet Knights’ current roster. However, their bid for a fourth title in five years came to a screeching halt last Thursday, when Sayreville Public Schools superintendent Richard Labbe abruptly canceled the following night’s scheduled home game against South Brunswick High School. The next morning, Labbe revealed that the game had been canceled due to revelations of “inappropriate conduct of a significant and serious nature.” Apparently it was egregious enough that the Sayreville Police Department and Middlesex County prosecutor had launched a criminal investigation.
The following Monday, Labbe canceled the remainder of the season at all three levels–freshman, junior varsity and varsity. He said that the criminal investigation revealed evidence of “pervasive” and “wide-scale” hazing that took place “at a level in which the players knew, tolerated and in general accepted.” Although some parents pitched a fit about the decision at Tuesday’s school board meeting, in the end the board upheld Labbe’s decision. One of the players’ parents subsequently told The Star-Ledger that at a certain point after practice, several upperclassmen would grab a freshman in the locker room and pin him to the floor. While the victim was lifted to his feet, a finger would be jammed into his rectum. Sometimes, that finger would be placed inside the victim’s mouth afterward.
The other shoe dropped on Friday night, when prosecutors charged seven players for a range of criminal offenses including hazing, aggravated sexual assault, criminal restraint and riot. The players, who range in age from 15 to 17, are charged with assaulting four teammates on four separate occasions between September 19 and September 29. Six of them were taken into custody on Friday night, while a seventh surrendered to police on Saturday afternoon. They could face up to six years in a juvenile detention center if the cases stay in the juvenile system and they are adjudicated delinquent on all charges. However, they could be potentially tried as adults. If that were to happen, a conviction on all charges could bring as much as 30 years in prison, a permanent criminal record and the requirement to register as sex offenders. While those who engaged in these horrific acts are obviously in need of a serious reality check, it’s also clear that they need treatment and counseling. After all, they’re still young enough that they can be turned around. For now, I’m undecided about whether they should be tried as adults or left in the juvenile system. However, if it urns out that they intimidated others into keeping quiet, that alone would call for trying them as adults. If it got to that point, I would hope that prosecutors would consider a sentence long enough to give them a reality check. That can be done without seeking the maximum.
Whatever is done, though, it won’t mean anything unless longtime head coach George Najjar and his staff are held to account for being disengaged in a way that high school coaches simply cannot be. Simply put, it is inconceivable that this would have gotten to the point that law enforcement would even have to be called in had Najjar had any sort of control over his locker room. State assemblyman and Sayreville resident John Wisniewski, best known as one of the leaders in the investigation into Bridgegate, wondered loudly, “Where were the grownups in the room when this was happening?” Unless Najjar has a really good answer to that question–and at this point, I don’t think there is one–there is no defensible reason for him to keep his job.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
