Football Hazing: What kind of adults protect Bullies ?

Four former Donna athletes charged with sex abuse

EDINBURG, Texas — Four former Donna High School football players have been charged with sexual assault in connection with locker room hazing allegations by five freshmen players.
The athletes — Derick Anthony Castillo, 18; Jacob Leal, 17; Manuel Josue Rivera, 19; and Raynardo Jaime Magallanes, 19 — are accused of holding down and trying to insert a gloved finger into the anuses of the victims.
The hazing followed off-season football practices, when freshman students worked out with the varsity team, school district officials said. The indictments issued last week said the abuse occurred four separate times between Aug. 7, 2004 to Feb. 15, 2005.
Earlier this year the Donna School Board fired head football coach and athletic director David Evans, head baseball and assistant varsity football coach Alfredo Holguin Jr. and head freshman football coach Robert D. Gracia over the matter. The board said the coaches tried to keep the hazing accusations quiet.
The accused students were expelled and sent to an alternative school for juvenile offenders, Superintendent Joe D. Gonzalez said.
If convicted, at least two of the teens charged could be required to register as sex offenders, including Castillo, the former star quarterback who faces nine counts, the most of any player.
The charges against the players range from criminal attempt of sexual assault of a child, indecency with a child by contact and criminal attempt sexual assault. Since the freshmen were under age 17, they are classified as child or minor victims.
Criminal attempt of sexual assault is punishable by two to 10 years in prison. Indecency with a child by contact carries a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and enrollment in the Texas Sex Offenders registry.
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Information from: The Monitor, http://www.themonitor.com
source: http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/gen/ap/TX_Hazing_Students_Charged.html
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Donna schools face challenges
September 10,2005
Brittney Booth
The Monitor

Grand jury indicts ex-football players

EDINBURG — A Hidalgo County grand jury indicted four members of the 2004 Donna High School football team on charges of felony sexual assault and indecency with a child, stemming from hazing incidents that rocked the district’s athletic program school last year.
Derick Anthony Castillo, 18; Jacob Leal, 17; Manuel Josue Rivera, 19; and Raynardo Jaime Magallanes, 19, are accused of sexually assaulting five young men under the age of 17 during four separate incidents between Aug. 7, 2004, and Feb. 15. The grand jury issued the indictments Thursday in the 370th state District Court. If convicted, at least two of the teens could be required to register as sex offenders.
The alleged assaults were part of hazing and initiations the four Redskins players inflicted on underclassmen. The hazing followed off-season football practices, where nearly a dozen freshman students worked out with the varsity team, according to school district officials.
As a result of the incidents, the school board fired head football coach and athletic director Dave Evans, head varsity baseball coach Alfredo Holguin and head freshman football coach Robert Gracia in March.
Castillo — the former star quarterback — faces the most charges:
Four counts of criminal attempt of sexual assault of a child, four counts of indecency with a child by contact and one count of criminal attempt sexual assault. The indictments allege Castillo assaulted four boys, telling one he was going to rape him and holding the victim down while he tried to pull down his shorts and put his latex-gloved finger in the boy’s anus. In another incident, Castillo is accused of sneaking up behind one boy while he showered, touching his buttocks and trying to put his finger in the boy’s anus.
Described as popular and praised for his athletic prowess, Castillo never had any behavioral problems, according to the Donna High School principal at the time the scandal broke.
Former starting defensive lineman Magallanes is facing two counts of criminal attempt sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child by contact for the hitting, holding down and trying to stick his finger in the anus of two victims.
Rivera and Leal are charged one count of criminal attempt sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child. The indictments accuse Rivera and Leal of assaulting the same victim, and each are accused of holding the boy down, striking him and trying but failing to put their finger in his anus.
Criminal attempt of sexual assault is a third degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $10,000. Indecency with a child by contact is a second degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison, a fine up to $10,000 and enrollment in the Texas Sex Offenders registry.
District Attorney Rene Guerra said his office will interview the victims and meet with the accused men to determine a conclusion. It is the policy of The Monitor not to publish the names of victims of rape or sexual assault. Most of the victims were freshman and 14 or 15 years old when the assaults took place.
"We need to look at the gravity of the conduct. We need to evaluate the strength of the evidence," Guerra said. "We will try to assess a reasonable negotiation from our perspective."
Superintendent Joe D. Gonzalez on Friday declined to comment on the indictments, beyond confirming that at the time of the incident, the students were expelled and sent to the McAllen Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program.
"I did not know (about the indictments,)" said Gonzalez. "We were not formally notified; they’re not our students anymore."
The Hidalgo County District clerk’s office assigned all four cases to suspended state District Judge Rodolfo "Rudy" Delgado’s 93rd state district court. Most of Delgado’s criminal cases are heard by one of the two auxiliary court judges, or are assigned to another state district judge. The teens should be formally arraigned within a month, said Joel Espinoza, the 93rd court coordinator.
Both Castillo and Magallanes have assault charges pending in county courts-at-law. Castillo’s attorney, Jesus M. Villalobos, and Magallanes’s attorney, Robert Williams, did not return phone calls. Leal and Rivera could not be reached for comment, and it was not clear if they had already retained attorneys.
The Donna athletic program is struggling to recover its reputation.
A Texas Education Agency report released in June revealed hazing went on for several years and alleged coaches know of and tolerated sexual assaults occurring in the men’s locker room.
According to the report, under the direction of former athletic director and head football coach Evans, female coaches were intimidated, certain athletes were given preferential treatment, and numerous occasions of "sexual exhibitionist behavior" and "assaultive behavior" were never reported to school authorities or law enforcement.
Evans had addressed Castillo for his sexual behavior on numerous occasions and had counseled Jacob Leal "many times about hitting or bumping other people."
The report said coaches "knew or should have known about the hazing/sexual assaults occurring in the men’s football locker room."
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Brittney Booth covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683- 4437.

Monitor staff writer David Tijerina contributed to this report.

source: http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=9083&Section=Local
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Mark Davis:
Hazing is sick
And pathetic, and stupid. So let's end all these 'traditions' already.
04:50 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 21, 2005
It's a very small number of people who know exactly what happened Aug. 27 at the house in Flower Mound now famous for a party that has pushed hazing back into the headlines.
Some horseplay and pranks among high school wrestlers – with their coach and adults present – either did or did not rise to a criminal level.
I'm sick of hearing about things like this. I have had it up to my eyeballs with the pseudo-macho sadism that so many people pass off as "tradition" or, my favorite, "boys just being boys."
Well, boys may be boys, but to whatever degree we have normalized and even glorified the intentional cruelty of hazing, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
Generations of athletes, frat boys and military men have endured hazing rituals, and many swear by them as a bonding exercise. Does that mean we're unable to bond, unable to forge friendships, team spirit, unit cohesiveness and toughness without submitting new arrivals to freakish exercises that humiliate, injure and sometimes kill?
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
First, I want to answer the readers who are shaking their heads at these last paragraphs, passing me off as some softie who just doesn't understand.
I understand perfectly. I understand that perpetuating hazing is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. Those seeking to break its sick cycle are marginalized because each generation had it done to them, and, doggone it, they're not going to be denied the thrill of handing it down to the latest crop of newbies.
Blind conformity is easy. A real show of toughness comes when would-be hazing victims step forward to say that enough is enough. The message should be: I am proud and eager to join your group, and I will work hard to be worthy, but I will not be locked in a trunk, forced to drink a quart of hard liquor or have my orifices probed by malicious peers.
Pardon that last reference, but that is reportedly what happened in Flower Mound as pranks grew darker and more shocking, according to witnesses, police and now an attorney representing two of the alleged victims.
This highlights another twist in the pro-hazing mentality, which would be comical if it were not so disturbing. If there is anything held out as a subject of ridicule in the testosterone-soaked world of hazing, it is effeminacy and the imagery of gayness.
Well, if all the wrestlers and frat boys are so hopped up to seek and punish the vestiges of gayness, why are they the ones with the endless bag of homoerotic tricks to pull on the new arrivals?
I once saw a college fraternity initiation in which upperclassmen gleefully enjoyed watching freshmen pass an egg from mouth to mouth down a line. Who was their rush chairman, Mr. Blackwell?
Back in Flower Mound, the wheels of justice will turn in an attempt to discover how bad things got at the party. The coach is basking in general support from the community, where he has a lot of backers who say he would not condone things getting out of hand.
But some say things got very out of hand. I don't know. I wasn't there.
But among those who were there, one faction says this is not just a hazing story, but a felony sexual assault story. Lining up on the other side are those quick to circle the wagons to protect a coach, 18 charged players and a sadly cherished tradition of doing brutal things to others for kicks.
If the charges have merit, I hope the punishment is swift and severe. If the charges are false, I hope exoneration is parceled out as deserved.
But in the larger sense, maybe this is an opportunity to take stock of a "tradition" that is stupid, hurtful and ultimately needless, and get rid of it so that we don't have to read stories like this anymore.
The Mark Davis Show is heard on News/Talk 820 WBAP and nationwide on the ABC Radio Network. WBAP airtime is 9 a.m. to noon. His column appears Wednesdays on Viewpoints, and his e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/all/stories/DN-markdavis_21edi.ART.State.Edition1.139b0b8c.html