From the 63rd Annual New England Scholastic Press Association Conference

Thayer Academy’s Student Magazine VoiceBrought home the following awards

NON-FICTION Abby Sullivan “Otis” page 3

PHOTOGRAPHY Irini Sotiri

Photo accompa-nying “A WishYour HeartMakes”

page 4

NON-FICTION Sam Martin “A Wish YourHeart Makes” page 5

FICTION Shane Gallagher “Just AnotherSilly Game” page 7

COVER

Katie MacVaris,Lily Bowen,Kevin Deng, Ty Richardson & Abby Sullivan

“Glee” parody(front cover) page 11

FEATURE WRITING Brennan Murray “Hazing – A

Complex Issue” page 12

COVER

Katie MacVaris,Lily Bowen,Kevin Deng, Ty Richardson & Abby Sullivan

“Glee” parody(back cover) page 14

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I t is worth noting what Otis did not remember, given what hedid remember. He did not remember eating Pedigree sprinkled withcrushed pills, or what he had endured mercilessly every week at the

veterinary office. Otis did not remember his vet, whom he had growled atbefore she shot him with insulin.  He did not remember sitting outside inthe snow as the cold ground soothed the continuously appearing sores on hisstomach. 

Otis did not remember his owner saying of the pills, “Eat ’em up puppydog.  They’ll make you feel strong again.” He did not remember Ms. Missyteaching his class how to sit, lie down, and roll over. He did not rememberhis contempt at these lessons. Otis did not remember the embarrassment hefelt after peeing on the carpet for the first time since puppy-hood.

Nor did Otis remember the neighbor who brought over his new puppyone day. He did not remember feeling the puppy’s eager nudge in request forplay. He did not remember his lethargy and reluctance to bounce along. He did not remember deliberately skipping meals or having his stomachrubbed by a bunch of strangers visiting him to say goodbye. He did not remember when he began to regard the stairs with dread, or when he grewhelpless when his thirst could not be quenched by endless amounts of water. 

This is what he remembered. Seventy-one degrees. A deserted beach. The first crack of daylight along the horizon. Low tide. His paws splashingin the ocean’s edge, running free alongside his owner. Running free fromhurt. Running free.

—Abby Sullivan

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Inspired by Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the Brain”

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Iremember when my dream stared down at me and told me not to give up—that mo-ment when I warded off “the real world” and dug myself deeper into my own versionof it. It was my first meteor shower, the Perseids of August 2010, and I had been plan-

ning my viewing for weeks. But as the two nights drewnearer, the forecast grew less and less favorable. On theday of the first night, I drove to work absolutely heart-broken by the enormous cloud cover stretching acrossthe sky. All that day, I worked to squeeze every ounceof positivity out of me. I don’t need a perfectly clearnight, I told myself. Just a small pocket in the Easternsky. But when I sat out on the deck that night, therewasn’t even a hint of a meteor. My parents were sym-pathetic the next morning, but I couldn’t bring myselfto appreciate it: already cleardarksky.com had re-dashed my hopes, predicting an even worse secondnight. So the second day dragged on even longer thanthe first, but I refused to lose hope. Once home, I toldmy surprised parents that yes, I was going to try againtonight, and yes, I had read the forecast, and yes, I knew what “heavy cloud cover” meant, andno, I didn’t care. So they laughed and retreated to their corner of the house, probably quietlydiagnosing me for a few hours before drifting off to sleep.

So there I was, lying on the back lawn, staring at the evil clouds.The minutes slowly inched by until suddenly I saw something soextraordinary I thought I was dreaming: there, way over on thewestern horizon, was a small window of clear sky fighting throughthe clouds. I held my breath and watched it, using my highly un-trained Jedi mind tricks to will it to move east. And it did. Beforelong, it had migrated across half the sky, centering itself perfectlyon the meteor’s path. Suddenly I could hardly breathe as thestreaks hurtled across the night sky for a few glorious seconds each.I started to count them, but each new meteor brought such won-der that I kept forgetting what number I was on. But just asquickly as this window had appeared, it continued its path anddisappeared over the other horizon. Content, I crawled into mywarm bed and collapsed on the sheets. It didn’t matter that I hadwaited a combined 7 hours for those wondrous 15 minutes—Icould hardly remember the cold, the prickly grass, the agonizingwaiting. All I could remember was the gold lights, flaring up andarcing across the sky, melting into infinity. Daring me to chaseafter them.

Unfortunately, cloud cover isn’t the biggest enemy to late nightobservers—often, the far more menacing light pollution sends us

to bed disappointed. Since my winters in Boston are therefore not filled with stargazing, I turnto the next best thing—learning. I wake up every morning to a new astronomical article onmy homepage, and sometimes (if it’s a really good day), there’s a pop-up notification about anewly discovered exo-planet. I go to school and work hard all day, to get the grades I think Ineed to do more than just look at space—to actually go there.

This naturally begs the question, why? The only explanation I have is that it’s my dream, andtherefore I will do everything I can to make it my reality, too. But my current reality is hardlyscience fiction. I live in a household where MD’s outnumber coffee mugs, so I had thought Iwould be made fun of for my dream. And I was entirely right. I have to watch everything Isay—one misused word, one faulty mental calculation, and they’re all laughing and asking meif NASA’s gone soft. But beneath the jokes and rolled eyes, I know I can still count on theirsupport.

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Self-doubt, however, is a whole different animal. It doesn’t laugh at you, it doesn’t makejokes. It is mostly silent, residing only deep in your heart, just waiting as it plants minusculeseeds of destruction. And then, without warning, it bursts forward and tries to choke you, whis-pering horrible things into your ear. Things like numbers—facts that can’t be argued. 99.5% ismy personal favorite—the percent of astronaut applications that are turned down by NASAevery two years. That’s 3,980 no’s to every 20 yes’s. In short, it’s a fantastically effective dreamkiller. Why put yourself through all those years of work, stress, and school just to ultimately berejected (statistically speaking)? And here is where the self-doubt pins you down—pointing outthe near impossibility of dreams, it pressures you to disregard them entirely. Logically speaking,it would be better to cut your losses and return to the real world—or grow up, as some wouldsay. But, as even Spock himself would agree, there are times when logic just isn’t the way to liveyour life.

But even if you’ve combated the family expectations and challenged theself doubt, dreams are simply not engineered to last in the real

world. When you’re eight, it’s cute to want to be a Patriots line-backer; at eighteen, it’s time to grow up. So dreams blossom,fade, wither, and are soon replaced by others; it’s their nat-ural life cycle. It’s one that should neither be ended toosoon, nor dragged out too long.

And so there is a delicate balance between hold-ing fast to a dream, and grasping so tightly as to robit of its worth. “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll allcome true,” Billy Joel recommends (and gentlywarns). Dreams do come true; more often theydon’t. But Billy Joel knows just as well as I do thatgetting what you dream for isn’t the point of dream-ing at all.

A dream’s true beauty isn’t its realization, butrather its very existence. We must dream and wish and

long, because otherwise we end up not only stalled far belowour potential, but also tragically convinced we’ve already reached

it. If you dream huge, you will invariably end up in some place almostas big—maybe, in some ways, even bigger.

And so I keep on dreaming. I nod along during dinner conversations, pretending I under-stand how one would find, isolate, develop, and market a monoclonal antibody treatment forC. difficile (which, when I voiced my confusion, my mother clarified by saying, “Oh, it’sClostridium difficile, Sam,” to which I feigned sudden understanding). I listen to weekly mes-sages from astronauts on the International Space Station, and take it to heart when Tracy Cald-well Dyson says to keep dreaming and join them someday. I look up whenever I can, and tryto imagine what it would be like to look down. Those meteors are out there somewhere, and Ifully intend to find them.

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Everyday in Psych 101 I would glance over andsee Gracie Park carefully sit up a little and ad-just herself in the mahogany seat placed right

next to the window, which peered out across the EastQuad to Johnson Lake.

These mannerisms always made her seem dis-tant and removed. However, I’m sure it wasn’t justin the class where she wasn’t herself; I figured it wasFrank’s fault. I knew Frank Crowley a little bit be-cause we had been in Neuroscience 170 with Profes-sor Arsenault together. He was Gracie’s boyfriendand an all-around jerk. Standing at about 6 feet withbroad shoulders and a strongbuild, he was not one to messwith. His furrowed eyebrowsand prominent chin gavehim an intimidating look,which could frighten anyone.Colby isn’t that big of aschool so you really kneweveryone. I heard aroundfrom people that he was a“good guy,” just ’cause he didsome community servicestuff and was #1 on the soc-cer team. However, I knewwhat kind of guy Frank reallywas. I always had this knackfor reading people, whichmade it easy to tell that Frankwas not a good guy. He wasalways looming over herwhen they were together and was clearly far too pro-tective. Whenever I would stare at her, I knew thatshe knew about it and would create that puzzled ex-pression on her face to play along. We always playedsilly games like that.

Everything about her was absolutely perfect.Her looks were the first thing that caught my atten-tion. Now, I know that it’s cliché to talk about how

a girl’s hair glistened in the bright moonlight or thather eyes were green like emeralds, but to me her haireasily flowed and could shine in even the dimmestfluorescent light and her eyes hypnotized me into astate of awe and happiness. To me, Gracie was likean angel with a magnificent glow, the kind thatcould light up the dim old diner my mom used towork at before she left us. She had an amazing figurethat could catch the eye of any other college guy. Herface was out of this world. The cheekbones on herface lined up perfectly with the bridge of her smallcute nose. Day after day her beautiful looks sucked

me in like a vor-tex and wouldmake me fanta-size about thekind of life wecould have to-gether. The twoof us on a picnicwith me watch-ing her sip anice-cold bottle ofCoca-Cola andknowing I fi-nally had her. Iknow it’s weirdfor me to thinkabout that stuff,but when you’rein love, youwant to do noth-

ing but say, “I love you,” like a boyfriend does as hegazes into his girlfriend’s eyes and slowly breathes thewords out of his mouth.

After much gawking I finally made the attemptto talk to her. As we were trying to make it throughProfessor Dormant’s lecture on multiple personalitieswithout dozing off, I turned to her and faintly said,“Hey, do you have a pencil I could borrow?” Her

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voice softly danced out of her mouth and glidedthrough my ears, making me go limp. She rifledthrough her periwinkle backpack on the floor. Anote spilled from it. On it was written “To Frank,”with a heart. I casually reached down and snatchedthe note as she continued searching her bag for thepencil. I turned to the side with my backhunched over and unfolded the note. Itwas a stupid love note she had written toFrank. I don’t know how he did this to her.He was blatantly abusive to her. I could seethis because he would always pick her up andtoss her around like some flimsy stuffed doll.She would repeat over and over again, “Frank, comeon put me down.” He would smile and continue hisrampage of overpowering her. His presence practi-cally paralyzed her to not realize how bad of a guyhe is. It was like his shadow was an iron prison thatheld the sensible Gracie that I knew and loved. Theonly thing standing in front of our being togetherwas Frank. I couldn’t believe her friends hadn’t talkedher out of it. All of them seemed so perceptive andsmart.

I sat next to her every day and we would con-tinue our little games of me admiring her, and shewould have that cute expression on her face. Oursilly games would always go on in class, and thoughshe never showed it, I knew it all made her happy.The one thing she made it impossible to do was talkto her. She was always trying to avoid me, but I knewwhy. That jerk Frank probably somehow made herfeel guilty for talking to any other guy. He wasn’teven in our class but he paralyzed her with fear ofabuse. Another thing I noticed was that whenever Isaw her, she would almost hide away from everyone.I knew that bastard must’ve beaten her around. I feltlike I had to get proof of this; the best way would bepictures. Luckily I already had some; she was sobeautiful that it was hard not to take at least one pic-ture of her to just stare at for hours. Trust me, whenyou actually met someone like Gracie, you wanted apicture of her to remind you that all the bad thingsin the world like death, famine, and abandonmentdidn’t exist around her.

After a couple weeks of continuing with ourgames and some little cute notes I left her, I had de-cided to take action. Frank was getting on my lastnerve, my evidence of their abusive relationship only

showed up with my gut feeling, which wasalways right. I knew I would become ahero to Gracie by ridding her of Frank,so it had to happen this night. On thenight of our last exam, which meantthat everyone went out drinking tocelebrate the upcoming break. They

were walking slowly together in the moonlightof our college courtyard back to Gracie’s dorm room.He seemed a little bit impaired, which was probablybecause he was about to pass out from the beers hehad chugged. He had his arm around her shoulders,shielding her from freedom and joy while she had anobvious expression of fear across her face. I quietlyhid in the bushes, waiting for him to drop her off.About 30 minutes later Frank walked out of HillsideDorms and zipped his North Face jacket up so itcovered up half his face. His uneven steps turnedinto speed walking. The whipping winter windstruck his face and made his eyes tear up. I didn’tcare how cold it was; adrenaline was rapidly pumpedthrough my veins and made everything but my goaldisappear. As he got closer and closer to me I grippedmy Crawford butterfly knife, feeling the mother ofpearl insets imprinted into the palm of my hand. Itwas the knife my dad had given me for my 11th

birthday. My mom was really upset at my dad forgiving it to me. I always wondered if that was thefinal straw for her or just something that fueled thefire that made her leave.

Finally he was in close range. I swooped in frontof him and my sudden appearance made him leap amile back and automatically frightened him to thecore. I quickly jabbed at his left abdomen. I aimedright below the rib cage and thrust the knife upwardinto his spleen, continuing into his lung. His expres-sion changed almost instantly. His mouth grew wideopen as well as his eyes. I slowly pulled the knife outand the blood flowed just like Gracie’s hair did on asunny day. I stood firmly still while he took two

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quick steps back clutching the wound, and trying tostop the bleeding. I knew he was about to scream,so I went in again, and as he was falling I grabbedthe lapel of his jacket and struck again but this timeinto his throat, making it impossible for him toscream for help. I noticed that I had hit just belowhis adam’s apple. Some of the blood that was travel-ing from his lung to his mouth stopped there andcontinued to suffocate him. The pain on his face wasso intense that it did nothing but make me feel evenbetter about what I had just done. I pulled my knife out of his larynxand he hit the paved pathway hard.The hand that was clutching his ab-domen fell to his side and his headtilted toward the trees of the forestin front of the dorms. I was over-come by a sense of heroism andbravery. I felt accomplished andpleased having seen the pain Frank had in his eyes.His body grew colder than the air around us and hisskin turned pale in the light of the moon.

I flipped the knife shut and put it back into mycoat pocket and bent down to grab the lifeless body’sjacket. I gripped the collar once more and began todrag him to the forest close by. He weighed about180 pounds, making it difficult to smoothly lug hisbody over to the woods. I finally got to the trees andwent in a little further, just far enough so that itcould still be discovered. I planned this perfectly sothat the body would be discovered fairly soon butlook like it wasn’t meant to be found. I carefully tookoff his jacket while making sure that his jacket wasthe only thing I touched. I took the dead leaves onthe ground and covered up parts of his body withthem. I walked out of the woods and went to thetrash near my doom room and dumped the blood-soaked jacket in the can with empty Doritos bagsand Hershey Bar wrappers. I went over to the spotwhere I had hidden some hydrochloric acid from thechem room and dumped it all in there—just tomake sure there was no evidence. I had my gloves onas well and dumped the acid in the trash along withthe jacket. I returned to my silent room and securelyput the knife away. I was making it nearly impossible

for the murder to be pinned back to me. Though itwouldn’t be all bad if that happened, Gracie wouldprobably thank me for ridding her of that now van-quished demon.

A couple days had passed and some party girlwho wandered into the woods finally discoveredFrank’s body. The discovery put the entire campusin a state of depression and fear. Everything was qui-eter around Colby after Frank’s death, which madesense. Not everyone had the same intuition that I

did about people. If people really knewthat jerk then they probably wouldn’thave been as sad. Gracie wasn’t inPsych for a few days after she foundout. I couldn’t believe that; eventhough he was dead he was still mak-ing her feel bad. She would see in timethat his death was a blessing because

it would bring us together. After a weekwe actually started talking in class. It started out assmall talk about a certain test, what our major was,the harsh winter weather, and so on and so forth.Every time she opened her mouth, I knew I wasabout to be graced by her beautiful voice dancingever so slightly around my ears. It was turning intoa fairy tale where the hero would finally get the girl.In class she would mention how she thought it wasso cute when I’d peer over to her during class andhow I also gave her a nice grin once in a while. Iknew that’s what she had been thinking; I’m verygood at reading people. We never talked aboutFrank, which meant he was almost out of her mind.The next week I decided to ask her to dinner. I askedher and she blushed with a soft “yes.” My life wasbecoming complete and the most beautiful girl inthe world was about to become mine. I decided totake her to Ruby Tuesday in Waterville on our dateand it turned out to be amazing. Then again, I al-ready knew it would be. I could’ve cared less that wedidn’t have much in common; I just wanted to bewith her badly. Everything was going perfectly andsomehow became truly amazing when she asked,“Hey, wanna go up to your room and hang out?” Iquickly responded with an enthusiastic yes. So westarted our walk to my small single dorm room.

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and you made yourself think that we shared somegoddamn romance! I’m turning this into the policeand you can rot in prison!” I realized she must bejoking and that it was just another one of our sillygames. She started to walk to the closed door of myroom, but I stopped her and said, “Come on, Gracie,quit playing around and give the knife back to me.”She yelled, “You need help!! Get away from me!!” Iplayfully tried to snatch the knife back, but she

turned around and quickly jabbed the knife to-wards me. I felt a sharp, cold pain in themiddle of my chest. Gracie and I stum-bled backwards simultaneously. Heropen palm was gently touching hermouth, which stayed just as openas her wide emerald eyes. Her ex-pression was like Frank’s after Ihad stabbed him except she wasnot the one who was stabbed, Iwas. I fell to the ground and she ran out of

the room screaming for help. My visiongrew blurry and dark, but I could still see my

own knife in my chest. The same knife I had becomea hero with; the same knife my mother had disap-proved of so much. The knife that was supposed tosymbolize Gracie’s freedom had symbolized the de-struction of our love. I knew it had pierced my heartand that I was going to die. I didn’t want Gracie toleave me right now as I was dying. I didn’t want herto abandon me like the woman who loved me mostin this world did eight years ago. I wanted my lastthought and the last picture in my mind to be Gracieright beside me, but it wasn’t. One of the lastthoughts I had was of my mother, getting into thecar with her suitcase in one hand and keys in theother. She left my father and me at midnight, withmy dad sleeping in their bed and me at just 11 yearsold, sitting on my bed and peering out the windowto see her wiping the tears from her face and drivingaway. Then, as the memory receded, everything elsestarted to fade as well, as I peered out into the hall-way, seeing doors fling open and students looking atmy body screaming and Gracie running away.

She started looking around, asking what every-thing was and where I had gotten it. She was trulyincredible. I decided to show her my very personalbelongings locked away in my chest under my bed.We sat down on my royal blue comforter and Iundid the lock. She began looking through all thestuff that was piled up in the old wooden chest. Shegrabbed something from it and stood up with herback toward me. I couldn’t see what she was holding,but I was sure it was some priceless item that shewould find sweet and adorable, just likeshe was. “You know,” Gracie said, “thepolice had sent Frank’s body to aforensic lab to find anything thatcould lead to the killer.” She wastalking about him again, I guessedshe must have forgotten abouthim and was focused on me now.“The only thing that they couldfigure out was the weapon that wasused. The murder weapon was said tobe a knife with four faces toward the topand six faces toward the bottom. It had somedeposits of mother of pearl and they were finally ableto narrow it down to a Crawford butterfly knife,”Gracie continued. I couldn’t really understand heruntil I noticed she was holding and turning my but-terfly knife, the same one I killed Frank with. Shewas starting to realize that in her hands was the keyto her freedom and opened the door to our love. Istood up and asked for the knife back. She re-sponded saying that my knife looked like the sameone that Frank was killed with. She then flipped itopen and saw the dried blood stains that I had neg-lected to wash, so I could have a memory of my glo-rious triumph. Her face was struck with suddenrealization. I was her hero in this story. I was the onewho had killed Frank because I knew what he wasdoing to her.

She turned to me with her lips pursed and un-blinking eyes staring me down. “I had to do it,” I ex-plained, “I knew what he was really doing to you andhe was standing in the way of the life we would havetogether. I saved you, Gracie.” She screamed, “Whatare you talking about, you sick freak?! I loved Frank

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Sports

Hazing A Complex Issue • Brennan Murray

It’s a dark, brutally cold Tuesday night. The rest of your soc-cer team, standing in a circle around you, laughs hystericallyas a pie is thrown in your face. Your new clothes arewrecked, and to add a little more humili-ation to the equation, the older play-ers decide to leash you like a dog andwalk you around the field. After yourknees are scraped and your pride is stomped on, you are finallyaccepted. Just this fall, a situation almost identical to this one occurredat Needham High School, when the girls varsity soccer teamdecided to “welcome” a group of underclassmen to the squad.In what has notably been a bullying era, it is rare that a weekgoes by without hearing of a high school controversy like thisone. But students continue to push their peers to depression,feelings of inferiority, and in some recent cases, even suicide.Though bullying and harassment both have new, relatively all-encompassing laws to punish their offenders, the separate haz-ing law does not seem to be scaring anyone. The high numberof hazing cases in high schools and universities throughout thecountry has called us to question why so many. A lot of cases,like the Needham High School one, point to the possibility thathigh school and college students alike may be a bit unclear oruninformed about what counts as hazing, what doesn’t, andwhen an initiation turns into it. “I have no idea what hazing is,” said one TA senior, whenasked how he would describe hazing. In fact, after interviewing15 two-or-more sport athletes at Thayer (boys and girls rangingfrom sophomores to seniors), I found that he was not the onlyone. Almost every student interviewed hesitated for at least amoment before he or she attempted to give a definition of haz-ing, as though it were a foreign concept to most of them—something they had never been called upon to discuss before.Answers varied greatly. One student said hazing was simply, “aninitiation,” but a fellow classmate in the same grade gave thismore thorough, complex definition: “Hazing is putting an individual into an uncomfortable and unwanted position andforcing an act upon them.” Though the responses I receivedwere so varied, when I asked the same group of students if theybelieved hazing took place at Thayer, an almost unanimous 13out of 15 said yes. How could it be that a group so diverse intheir definitions of hazing could almost unanimously agree thathazing plays a role in some form at Thayer? The discrepancy is worrisome, especially concerning sucha dangerous topic. Hazing, in many cases, has gotten teams sus-pended and coaches fired in other schools. Far more alarmingly,initiations-gone-too-far have led to multiple accidental deaths.The Massachusetts Hazing Law was pushed through the legis-lature 25 years ago, prompted by the death of a college studentwho had been forced into consuming alcohol for a fraternityinitiation. The law was intended to prevent but also set out a clear def-inition for hazing, including specific examples of unacceptableactions like branding, whipping, and forced consumption offood or beverage. But why is hazing still so unclear to students?

Two sophomores at Thayer who took part in my interview bothsaid that they had never been taught what hazing was, norwarned of its consequences before Decisions class freshman year.Hazing, according to them, was just “something that seniorsdo.” This is not the type of trend that any school wants; unawareunderclassmen following unsafe upperclassmen traditions andbelieving that it’s acceptable. Do administrators know when hazing happens at their

school? Athletic Director Matt McGuirk said he did not believehazing played any role at Thayer. However, a majority of thestudent-athletes I interviewed said they had at least heard aboutan incident here they thought could be hazing. Mr. McGuirkemphasized his desire for kids to report instances of hazing. “Allof the coaches are given information about hazing every coaches’meeting every year,” he said. “I hope that if something did hap-pen, it would be brought to my attention.” Surely that seemslike a reasonable request, but again, how can students reporthazing if they are still so unclear as to what it means? I askedMr. McGuirk how he thought the school administration andcoaches could do a better job of teaching their athletes abouthazing, and he gave a solid suggestion: “Instead of just talkingabout what hazing is, coaches should sit down for an hour ortwo with their players and go over some hypothetical situations,talk about scenarios. Talk about what is acceptable and what isnot.” I think many would agree that discussing real-life situationswould be a better way for kids to learn about hazing than byreading a fancy, strictly constructed law on a piece of paper. See-ing pictures, watching videos, reading stories about past hazingcases, and talking through “What if?” scenarios, students couldadopt a more colorful, less black and white interpretation ofwhat constitutes hazing and what does not. The key to decreas-ing hazing numbers in high schools and colleges throughoutthe country might just be having a better understanding of whatit is. In many of the news stories we hear, the hazers, like theNeedham High girls, may not understand they have done any-thing wrong until they are disciplined, which, in their case,meant suspended from the team. So teachers, coaches, and advisors, before the sports sea-sons start, or just at the start of the school year, take a little timeto inform students about some past hazing cases. Make up somehypothetical situations and make sure the kids know what is acceptable and what’s not. Make the extra effort. It won’t takemuch to help prevent unnecessary controversies.

92% of high school students

will not report hazing incidents.

One hazing-related death per year

in the U.S., since 1970.

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And students and athletes, take hazing seriously and make sureyou understand what it is. As a back up, you can always count onthe “If you wouldn’t do it in front of your mom, you probablyshouldn’t do it” saying to guide you. Hazing is unnecessary. LikeMr. McGuirk suggested during the interview, play some karaoke orsomething. Start some fresh, new, fun traditions. Team bonding isa lot more useful than team humiliation. But athletes and coaches are not the only ones who have work todo. It is clear that the Massachusetts lawmakers need to be working

1.) Why is hazing so dangerous to the

people involved?

Hazing is dangerous, physically and/or emotionally, because

it usually involves some form of “extreme” behavior which

is meant to test the target’s resolve to be part of a

group.  There is an imbalance of power between those who

are hazing and those who are being hazed; the  target

implies “consent” to the hazing in order to be accepted

into the group. Hazing is a form of emotional blackmail; the

targets believe they must participate to be accepted.

2.) How do you think TA, or high

schools in general, can do a better job

of preventing initiations and acts of

hazing?

Education and consequences. High schools need to do a

better job educating students and coaches (or other

adults) about the law prohibiting hazing. Reading the law

is not enough; students and adults need to discuss certain

scenarios and specific acts. Some “team-building”

behaviors, even when participation is allegedly voluntary,

constitute “emotional blackmail.”The student really

doesn’t believe they have a choice; if they don’t participate

they stand apart from their teammates and appear to be

unwilling to sacrifice for the team (athletic teams are not

the only groups who “haze”). Consequences, such as

disciplinary actions imposed by the school or a conference

athletic association, usually in the form of game suspen-

sions, would deter athletes.

3.) When it comes to bullying and

hazing, how do you and other faculty

members work on improvements?

Education is our best tool. Coaches, students and parents

need to be informed about what acts constitute hazing and

be warned disciplinary consequences will be imposed if

hazing occurs.

4.) Do you think we will ever see the

day when hazing becomes outdated?

If so, when?

At the high school level, hazing may become obsolete when

there are uniform and consistent disciplinary consequences

for all students (and adults) who participate. 

5.) With all the emphasis being put on

bullying nowadays, is hazing left out of

conversations? Or is it part of the con-

versations?

Hazing is really a very insidious form of bullying because

the hazers believe those being hazed are “consenting” par-

ticipants in exchange for acceptance into the group. In fact

most being hazed believe they have no choice and therefore

are the victims of “bullying.” Schools should include

“hazing” when discussing the topic of bullying. 

6.) Do you think the MA government

should work on a new hazing law like

they did with the bullying law?

I think the MA Board of Education should be more vigilant

about making sure schools are enforcing the law that has

existed since 1985 called  “An Act Prohibiting Hazing”.  

Q&A with Beth Sullivan, Director of Counseling

harder too. Our hazing law does not currently require the Depart-ment of Education to gather any information about real hazing casesthat occur in Massachusetts’ schools. Therefore, many school administrations are not feeling pressure to document the incidentsor look for ways to prevent them from occurring in the future.While the new bullying law puts at least some heat on school administrations to comply, the 25–year-old hazing law does not. If the Massachusetts government agrees that the hazing law needsan update, now would be a better time than ever to get it done.

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