Hazing Incident at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps forces cancellation of rest of season

[mngopher]

To me a lot of it comes down to team leadership, which is probably not the best line of defense being that those are mostly 21-22 year olds.

We had really good captains my first year. They did buy a keg for a team party at their house at the end of preseason, but they knew that it was the first college house party for many of us and treated us as such. Encouraged us to eat a big meal before coming over, didn't have any hard alcohol, and could opt out of drinking if we wanted to. Enforced a team rule of no drinking within 48 hours of any game.

We still had to do a few fairly harmless traditions like introduce ourselves in front of the entire women's team including announcing relationship status. But the captains treated us like we were their little brothers, and truly protected us. Leadership from the captains was not very good my sophomore year, and it's probably not a coincidence that those first-years got themselves in a little more trouble.

[Hopkins92]

We had a great team culture, which is why the faux-hazing thing felt so stupid.

When I attended, Hopkins didn't have enough student housing so everyone after their freshman year had to find an apartment. So, for preseason, you got assigned an upperclassman and you stayed at their apartment for 2-3 weeks before the dorms opened up.

This meant we got a big brother and we bonded with everyone very quickly. The team also had established row homes (2 or 3) that were like frat houses/bases. During preseason, we gathered there and had beers and got to know each other.

Feeling a little nostalgic in the moment. Every program has their "thing" and Hop sure was a unique experience.