Oct. 10, 2007

by Clare Lochary, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff

Sports can teach you many important things: teambuilding, the value of hard work, and how to win and lose gracefully.

The Division II Millersville (Pa.) University women's lacrosse team learned a different life lesson recently: if you take pictures of yourself doing dumb and illegal things, you will get caught and you will get in trouble.

Perhaps it's not the most subtle lesson, but still an important one to know.

On Aug. 23, the anti-hazing website NCAAhazing.com posted pictures of the Marauders' women's lacrosse team participating in an initiation party with underage drinking and embarrassing costumes. Some of the pictures were as old as 2005, but others were as recent as February 2007.

The university and the coach, Barbara Waltman, were unaware of the hazing before the pictures surfaced. Millersville has since cancelled both the fall ball season and the team's spring break trip, and suspended three unnamed players from the team for two weeks. The team will have to design and present an anti-hazing program to the rest of the school's student-athletes. The Marauders will play their spring 2008 schedule as planned.

The hazing violated the university's student code of conduct, as well as NCAA policy and Pennsylvania state law. Generally, these rules exist for liability reasons. No one wants to see some poor freshman injure herself during an initiation stunt, or get peer-pressured into alcohol poisoning or worse.

But the potential for physical harm is not the only reason that hazing is a bad idea. It's rationalized as harmless fun and team bonding, but the rituals are inherently laced with aggression.

The Millersville photographs are dumb, but not particularly racy. Players have beer cans taped to both hands, and wear men's underwear outside their clothing, with more underwear as hats and tampons as curlers. There's one shot of a girl with her head in a trashcan, either puking or just as part of the hazing.

But it's uncomfortable to see grown women dressed for the sole purpose of being humiliated. Why denigrate the dignity of your teammates, your school and your sport? Making the scrubs carry equipment and go on ball hunts is one thing. This is another.

If any team on a college campus should be aware of how an "innocent" team party can spiral out of control, it's the lacrosse team. We're all still recovering from that other rowdy party down in Durham.

The Millersville athletic department didn't need this mess, either. There was an on-court brawl after a men's basketball game back in February, and it just reinstated nine suspended football players after an off-campus September incident involving a sexual assault allegation.

I've been through hazing. It wasn't for a sports team, just for the all-girls high school I attended. It was school-sanctioned, alcohol-free and generally pretty innocuous. Mainly, I recall wearing an Ernie from Sesame Street costume, and rolling around in the dirt on the field hockey field at the behest of the seniors.

I loved it. I loved the silliness, I loved the sense of belonging, and I especially loved the attention from the upperclassmen. I was appalled when they cancelled the activity after the next year, because someone's parents complained. As a 14-year-old, I was infuriated that some whiny freshman ruined everyone else's fun.

As an adult, however, I know now that if one girl felt scared or humiliated, it wasn't worth it. There are other ways to bond.

The Millersville athletic Web site still has the 2007 women's lacrosse outlook posted, touting the Marauders chances for success with 16 returning players. It also notes that "the 2007 women's lacrosse team is also much closer off the field, which should translate into better team performance."

The Marauders finished 6-10 last year, one game worse than their 2006 record. Apparently that team chemistry wasn't what they thought it was.

Over the next few months, the Millersville players will be able concentrate on themselves instead of any fall-ball opponents. They can use time to think about what they hoped to accomplish with the hazing, and find a way to build each other up without putting each other down.

Division III Expands Tournament Field

Debut programs like Adrian (Mich.) and Hendrix (Ark.) aren't making any title runs just yet, but they are already affecting the NCAA Division III men's tournament.

The tournament field will expand from 20 to 21 teams in 2008, thanks to an NCAA policy that mandates a 1 to 6.5 access ratio for Division III tournaments. (What is an access ratio, you ask? It means that for every 6.5 teams that sponsor the sport, there is one spot in the championship bracket. Don't worry; I needed it explained to me, too.) So every school that adds the sport pries the door to the postseason open just a little bit wider.

Another sign that that the D-III tournament has hit the big time: rising ticket prices. Tickets to the tournament will nearly double in 2008 - from $3 to $5. Many schools were already charging $5 for admission to regular season games, so it seemed fair to bump up the postseason price.

News & Notes

St. Bonaventure has hired Christy Malone to replace head women's lacrosse coach Tony Zostant, who left the Bonnies to helm Binghamton's program. Malone comes to St. Bonaventure from Division II Philadelphia University, where she spent the past four years as head coach...After two seasons in College Park, Maryland assistant women's coach Brian McGurn will join the staff at Yale under first-year coach Laura Field. The Terps beat the Bulldogs, 13-7, in the first round of the 2007 NCAA tournament.