UMBC Women’s Lacrosse Coach Fired After Hazing Scandal

Hazing and bullying have been part of the human experience since dawn itself. While the moniker “break you down to build you up” is frequently thrown around to justify the practice, along with classics like “misery loves company” and “the best time you never want to have again”, the fact is that hazing is harmful to both the people involved as well as to the institution supporting it. Hazing can be found in groups and societies all over the world and in all sorts of environments. However one of the most common places to find it, other than in Greek life, is in sports teams. Here it is frequently used to instill discipline as well as to, supposedly, promote a team environment.

It turns out that institutions don’t like hazing and will punish those involved, regardless of their position. The women’s lacrosse coach at the University of Maryland Baltimore County campus has been placed on leave following an investigation into hazing and cyber bullying that occurred during his tenure. Along with coach Tony Giro, 5 players were also suspended for threatening freshman players with bodily harm over text and email. The school has put a stop to all contact drills at team practices as well so that there’s no chance of anyone getting “accidentally” hurt due to the troubles occurring.

The fact that this hazing was all done over electronic communication has forced administrators to realize that there’s a whole new battleground to fight on in the war against bullying. While hazing was once only done in private in person and in locker rooms, it is now more and more frequently in the semi-public space of electronic communication. The locker room allowed administrations some sense of plausible deniability due to the privacy it afforded and the fact that they could just shuttle the blame and redemption to the coaches and players. Now, however, the fact that it’s being done online means that anyone can leak solid proof of these actions and put not only the athletic program, but the entire school under the spotlight and in the public eye.

The team’s other co-coach, Amy Slade, is now the sole head coach for the program and hopefully she’ll be able to reel in both the players themselves as well as the toxic culture that continues to both allow and promote this sort of behavior. If she can’t then there’s a very good chance that the UMBC Retrievers won’t have much longer to play lacrosse for their school.

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