Younger players were allegedly attacked with a BB gun, broomstick and drawn on during a five-day football camp in upstate New York.
Susan Wagner High School in Staten Island, N.Y. is investigating a string of alleged hazing incidents that parents say occurred during the football team's five-day summer training camp in upstate New York.
SILive.com first reported the scandal on Saturday and says that all Wagner’s varsity and junior varsity practices and games are suspended at this time.
Speaking anonymously, one parent of a junior varsity player went into detail about what went on at Camp Pontiac in Copake, N.Y. after his son returned from camp with marker up and down his legs.
"They had a BB gun up there that they were attacking the kids and shooting at kids with. A lot of kids woke up with penises drawn on their faces, neck, head, arms, legs," the parent told SILive.com. "That's outrageous, and with [permanent] magic markers. These kids were scrubbing the life out of their skin."
The parent also claimed that older players physically attacked their younger teammates with a broomstick and in the shower with a powder-filled sock.
At night, the hazing continued, the parent said.
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"They were pulling their pants down and rubbing their butts in people's faces while they were asleep," the parent added. "That's so disgusting. And these are minors."
In a letter to parents on Tuesday, which SILive.com obtained, Wagner Principal Gary M. Giordano confirmed that the allegations of misconduct involve both varsity and junior varsity players and also suggested that "parents who feel that their child was the victim of a crime while away at camp last week, should report the incident to the Columbia County Sheriff."
As of Wednesday morning, the Columbia County Sheriff's office has not received any complaints, according to SILive.com.
That has parents from the Susan Wagner Football Parents Club speaking out against the allegations.
"It's not hazing," Rina Cuzzocrea, the club's president, told SILive.com. "Everything we're learning, we're learning from the media, but a lot of the things that you guys are saying are not true," Cuzzocrea said.
During a meeting held Wednesday, Cuzzocrea told the media "we're here because we want our boys back on the field."
The sentiment echoes that in Sayreville at a Board of Education meeting on Oct. 7, 2014 when parents and players spoke out against the hazing scandal that rocked their Middlesex County community last fall, canceling a football season.
Sayreville's scandal was enough of an eye-opening experience that an anti-hazing seminar was held at Wagner High School in November of 2014.
"We want to make our students aware of what hazing is, how to recognize it, how to stop it and what everyone's role is in stopping it," Wagner Athletic Director Scott McBratney told SILIVE.com at the time of the seminar. "We have good programs, we have good teams and good kids, and this a reminder that we must always treat each other well.
And there are further echoes of Sayreville in the Wagner allegations.
Now-dismissed Sayreville coach George Najjar was coaching in the 1980s at Brooklyn’s Lincoln High School, which at the time also did a training-camp stint in upstate New York. Former players on those Lincoln teams came forward and shared a similar account of hazing at those camps.
In an interview with WABC on Tuesday night, one parent of a Wagner junior varsity player produced group chat messages between the school's football players that hinted that the hazing was a yearly ritual, similar to those alleged to have occurred between the classes at Lincoln.
The text messages read: "Everyone delete the chats," "Don't let this get out" and "Cuz no one snitched last year and worst (sic) ... happened to us."
SILive.com's in-depth original report on the Wagner incident can be found here and the website's follow-up stories are linked here.
Pat Lanni may be reached at planni@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatLanniHS. Like NJ.com Football on Facebook.