“The coach should have brought the charges.” That is your opinion in terms of any Honors charges. Most coaches will discipline as they see fit, within their program. He notified the AD and the authorities . He was not obligated to bring Honors charges. For most serious athletes, having to sit out an entire semester (which all the defendants were required to do) is pretty serious business. The plaintiff interrupted his swimming career as well and will now be at Northwestern, so hopefully will have a successful swimming career there.
Does anyone know whether he was redshirted his freshman year at UVA?
I don’t think he ever competed for Virginia, period. The other first year guys he was recruited with stayed on but he did not.
Right, but that is what redshirting means, you are on the team but don’t compete. Some teams redshirt all of their freshmen, so they don’t compete at all until sophomore year. Do we know if he stayed on the team all year as a redshirt?
He does not even appear on their roster for 2014-15. He probably left before any competitions started in October. A couple of the guys he was recruited with competed right away, possibly in part because 5 of the upperclassmen were suspended.
Just looked at the 14-15 men’s roster. All the guys he came in with competed right away.
Ok thanks. I was just trying to understand the facts. I didn’t know if he left the team and the U right away, or stayed to the end of the year, but did not compete, or what.
I have no idea if he left school immediately after these allegations surfaced in September but he didn’t compete. He is from Mass. so he might have gone home if he was feeling stressed but I really don’t know.
@Bay he will only have to monetize the claims for which he is seeking compensatory damages. That amount will be calculated on the basis of “replacing what he has lost.” But punitive damages are arrived at by the jury and calculating them is a subjective process – the amount awarded depends on the opinion of the jury. Punitive damages are intended to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit.
Yes I understand what punitive damages are, but they are not automatic and I think they are hard to get if you can’t prove injury.
That is what will be interesting-damages. He did very well in March at a meet. He seems to have gone home and gotten into club again ? There was no mention of UVa at all with Northwestern in the recruiting info I saw. Like the UVa stuff didn’t exist, a kid took a gap year or hadn’t started college yet ,etc. Probably a good plan . The only issue could be the way all of this will be easy to access for a long time. Uncommon names can pull things in for a very long time. It takes two seconds to figure some of this stuff out.
I remember that in high school my D made a flat statement that she would never have anything to do with any “jocks” and would never consider dating one. At the time, I thought she was being overly didactic and judgmental and said so but teenagers are often prone to snap judgments and she stuck to her guns on through college.
After reading about this incident, I feel like I should call her and congratulate her for being smart enough to avoid the kind of young men who are apparently drawn to this kind of behavior. I’m sure that most of them don’t actually engage in activities as extreme as the ones outlined in the UVA swim team case but clearly enough of these hazing rituals go on that it’s apparently part of the culture. No wonder so many young men can’t seem to see young women as human beings, deserving some respect and dignity. The fact that parents of young male athletes don’t find this behavior to be exceptional and don’t have a problem with it is very disheartening, too.
I’ve never been so glad that my son never was very interested in continuing team sports beyond middle school. At the time I was disappointed and encouraged him to continue. Now I feel like he dodged a bullet.
410 one of the more inane posts I've ever read in all my years participating in these forums. The sweeping generalizations just made me spit out my yogurt all over my keyboard.
It really is pretty offensive to lump all “jocks” together. I married a college athlete and my sons both played varsity sports in high school, considered playing in college (one did play on a competitive club team in college). My kids seem to have turned out alright.
As the parent of a young man who is completing high school with his sport and is pursuing it on into the college level, this sort of behavior is of great concern to me. I do not want my son to be either a victim or a perpetrator. Upon reflection, I think this is one reason it is important to keep the relationship between parents and children strong and open. When stuff happens I would like to hope that my sons would be able to come and talk it through with a parent or feel confident and strong enough to bring concerns to the attention of a coach.
I agree, madamcrabster. Important for kids to be neither the victim nor perpetrator in hazing. It is good that the issue is being addressed more.
This is one of the sad results of this sort of behavior – the actions of a few tend to reflect poorly on sports programs and the universities where these things occur. These boys obviously placed little value on the privilege of attending UVA and representing the school on one of its athletic teams. Personally after reading those emails I do not think these boys deserve to have the honor of a UVA degree associated with their names.
At one time of my life I worked with the most foul, potty-mouthed and at times marginally unethical bunch of people I’d ever encountered in my life, at least for 9 months until I quit because I couldn’t stand the environment… Some of them were very “nice” people when they wanted to be. But I’ve never associated people’s personalities with deserving of this college or that uni and in my opinion foul, potty-mouths, marginally unethical people can probably be found in any college or uni so I can’t go so far as to say the swim team members didn’t “deserve” to go to UVa. Academically they probably did and until colleges start making high school juniors thke EQ tests along with application I think it is what it is.
I suppose that we are all products of our early environments. I was raised with the expectation of maintaining certain standards of personal behavior. It was made clear to me from a very early age that how I conducted myself would reflect not only on me and my family, but on the communities to which I belonged. Rightly or wrongly that’s just the reality of human nature.
So if I value a school, social club, employer or any other organization, I am cognizant that my behavior can either support that organization or detract from it’s reputation. I value the communities that I have chosen to associate myself with and consider membership in those communities to be a privilege. I think being part of a community like UVA is a privilege. When I read those emails I conclude that those boys abused that privilege or simply did not see it as such.
Yes and the complainant transferred so hopefully his new environment will line up closer to those ideals he has. UVa has (at least in the midwest) had an image of work hard/play harder and so does UofM so it makes sense that is where the culprits flocked. Northwestern is perhaps perceived as more “serious” of a campus culture although as we all know there are all kinds everywhere. I left my job after having to live with the raunchy people I worked with. But I do not assume that everyone holds themselves to the standard that I try to hold myself to, I just am not that much of a idealist nor to i expect people to automatically line up behind my beliefs. I do know I can find like-minded people. I learned too young (as I was at the company full of raunchy people) birds of a feather flock together and that flock was not my flock.
NWU, as a private university, is going to be able to control its students’ activities moreso than UVA and UMich can. Some people prefer an educational environment that is closely monitored, others prefer the freedoms offered at public u’s, which more closely align with society at large.