An article about the hazing

A friend of mine wrote this about the Florida A & M hazing death situation, and I thought I'd share...

Marching Bands come alive at parades, competitions, and of course, half time! You can feel the excitement when the drums start booming, but you probably won’t feel the impact of a young student getting hazed, at least not directly.

It’s a sad fact that some marching band members will meet the same fate as Robert Champion, whom was a 26-year-old drum major. Robert was discovered to be dead on the band’s bus after a football game performance.

The hazing that is believe to have caused his early death was contributed to the “walk through a wall fists” that Police and former band members have stated that Champion was most-likely forced to go through as part of a hazing event. Police have followed up by saying that Robert Champion was witnessed by a few who saw him vomit, and he later complained that he “couldn’t breathe” a short time before he collapsed and eventually died.

Stepping aside from all of the political discussion and misinformation being pushed by many universities, hazing is a long-established practice that is less prevalent than before, but still happens today. How would I know? I’m a proud member of a national fraternity (name withheld for obvious reasons) and I was hazed… but I survived and I’m discussing this with you today.

I’m not sure who would stand up before us all and admit this kind of thing, but it does exist and to ignore this is just a shame. Robert and others have died, how long does this have to go on. When one school (this time Florida A & M / FAMU), next time it will be another large university. Each time a marching band experiences a tragic loss like this, marching bands everywhere get a black eye. This kind of modern-day social practice needs to be changed or limited to just a mental game, rather than the physical acts that took Robert’s life.

Sure, the President of FAMU has fired Dr. Julian White (the band’s director), and everyone is acting like they are all shocked about this. Let’s all take a deep breath and have a real discussion about it, and make some real changes to keep the honor and the feeling of excitement alive, because to me that’s what the marching band is all about.

What is going on at colleges all of sudden?

The past few weeks, if you've been keeping up with the news, but you might have noticed that a few universities are enthralled in controversy.

First off, we have Penn State, where an assistant coach apparently molested a boy in the shower. Coach Paterno and one other assistant apparently either saw this or told them to stop or something, I can't remember the exact details, but the fallout has resulted in many heads rolling, including the chancellor, or was it the president, of the school and Coach Paterno being fired, and the guy who actually did the molesting headed to court. The whole situation has many people up in arms, whether it is about the child molesting, or the fact that nothing was done or said for 10 yrs, or the fact that Paterno was fired, but the other assistant who was there got to keep his job. For me this is just one of those situations where you just shake your head, y'know?

Last week, or the week before, it came out that a drum major at Florida A & M died. It turns out that this was the result of hazing. This is a little close to home for me, because I was in band in school (hell, i teach it now...lol), and in my fraternity days, went through a bit of hazing, but nothing this extreme. As more details have been coming out, it turns out that the band director, who lost his job over this, was not entirely at fault here and that hazing has been some sort of underground thing here. I'm no condoning hazing in any shape, form, or fashion, but if you're going to do this, then one would think that when the guy starts throwing up, you need to stop. What ever happened to the simple paddling? Why must they punch now a days? Really, what does this prove? Ugh! Anyway, before this happened, it turns out that since school started 30 members of the band had been kicked out for hazing, and I'm sure more than a few more are soon to join that number. The governor of Florida is calling for an extensive search into this situation. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about this as time goes by. It really sucks that it takes such a negative thing to get a band in the news, though, especially one that is as good as Florida A & M.

To go along with both of these incidents, it appears that something is going on with Syracuse and one of their assistant coaches and some sort of scandal that will have more and more details sure to come out in the next few days. *SIGH*

So, what in tarnation is going on with the universities around here all of a sudden? It really makes you wonder how man things are being covered up, or have been covered up. Doesn't it just make you sick?

So, dear readers, what say you?

It's ok to be part of a fraternity, but this is too much

I can't believe what the Southern University band members have done. In case you haven't hear or read. Here is the article:

Three members of the Southern University band were beaten with a 2×4 wooden board as part of initiation into the band’s french horn section, a probable cause report says.

Two of the victims remained hospitalized in serious condition Tuesday.

Six band members were arrested Tuesday and deputies were looking for a seventh suspect.

Tuesday morning, East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested Harvey Harrison and Carlos-Andres Carter, both 19 years old. They are each charged with aggravated battery and ritualistic acts. Both charges are felonies. Both men denied any knowledge of the incident, investigators said.

Tuesday afternoon, four additional suspects were arrested and also charged with Aggravated Second-degree Battery and Ritualistic Acts. The suspects include Jeremy Dixon, age unavailable, of Natchez, Mississippi, Joseph Lee Webb, age 21, of Columbus Georgia, Lagarian Bridgewater, age 22, of Baton Rouge, and Aubrey Harris, age 20, of Canton, Mississippi.

According to a witness, as part of the initiation ritual, “the three subjects were blindfolded and told to remove their shirts,” the probable cause reports says. “They then had water splashed on them as senior members of the organization struck them numerous times with open hands. The three victims were then told to bend over at the waist, and the senior members began striking them numerous times with a large wooden board, commonly referred to as a 2 x 4. One victim elected to stop the ritual after he had been struck over fifty times with the board. In a statement to investigators, he identified seven members of the French Horn section of the band who were present at the home and participated in the ritual,” the report says.

The report says the other two victims “did not ask to have the ritual halted, and later sought medical treatment at a hospital for their injuries.”

The report says the incident happened at a home on McClure Road in East Baton Rouge Parish as part of a hazing ritual to be “initiated into an unofficial fraternity known as ‘Mellow Phi Fellow’ for the French Horn section of the band, the probable cause report says.

“We have interviewed a witness, and have several suspects to interview today,” sheriff’s office spokeswoman Kellie Engels said Tuesday morning.

The band took part in Saturday’s Bayou Classic football game in New Orleans, which featured Southern University versus Grambling State.

Sources say hazing is nothing new within the Southern University band, but it depends on your definition of hazing. Our source within the band says most often, hazing usually hovers around paddling, slapping, or neckin,’ which is a stiff slap to the back of the head. It is in the form of older students picking on younger students, so they may earn their letters.

Sources say the two students in the hospital are both freshmen and from out of state.

The university would not release specific details of the incident and issued only a brief statement late Monday afternoon. In a two-line statement, the university wrote:

“We have received information that two members of the Southern University Marching Band were injured in an off-campus incident that is under investigation. ”Our thoughts and prayers are with these families and for the speedy recovery of our students.”

As a member of a fraternity myself, I know what it feels like to go through the hazing process, but I never had to endure anything anywhere near this. Obviously, I can't discuss what I went through, but I can say that the closest that came to this was just talk. I can't belive they actually did this, though.