Central Bucks West H.S. Cancels Football Season After Hazing Reports
The superintendent of the Central Bucks School District announced Thursday that the remainder of Central Bucks West High School’s football season has been canceled. The decision to cancel the rest of the season, Superintendent David Weitzel wrote, came after reports of hazing on the team, including rookies being forced to grab other players genitals. C.B. West was supposed to play rival C.B. East tonight in its homecoming game.
Other players were reportedly involved in waterboarding, per police, but the process was not quite the same as the torture: Players had towels draped over their head and were then lead into the shower.
“Appropriate team-building activities cannot be permitted to spiral out of control and become hazing,” Weitzel wrote. “As educators, we must do what is right for all of our students, who deserve to be treated with dignity and with respect.”
Central Bucks West has a storied football tradition. It won four state championships in the 1990s. The current coach of the Cleveland Browns, Mike Pettine Jr., is the son of the longtime West coach. Though the team has not been as good since the school district split again in 2005 and Central Bucks South opened, it still draws crowds and has been viewed as a strong program.
“But most importantly, a town may have lost a pretty good chunk of its identity and its legacy,” Kevin Cooney wrote in today’s Intelligencer. “Doylestown had three imports that people knew about nationally — James Michener, Pink and CB West football.” The elder Pettine called the scandal “a kick in the gut.”
The district suspended all members of the varsity and junior varsity coaching staffs. Weitzel blamed the coaching staff for a “failure… to properly supervise activities.”
“I offer my sincere apologies to any member of the football program who was subjected to the demeaning actions of fellow players who should have served as role models,” Weitzel wrote.
[Central Bucks School District | The Intelligencer]