By Marc Thaler
Staff Writer

In recent years, the greatest concern for a pair of Pembroke Academy athletic programs was turning their struggling varsity squads into state championship contenders.

Those struggles became insignificant last fall, after school officials made two startling discoveries.

During the fall 2004 sports season, members of the boys varsity soccer team and varsity football team were involved in separate incidents of potentially harmful behavior to teammates, prompting full investigations by PA administrators.

"In my view, there was enough evidence of abusive behavior that we took action against the kids we felt were at the center of it," said Pembroke Academy Headmaster Michael Reardon.

The school newspaper story printed the headline, "Gridiron hazing scandal hits P.A.," but Reardon said the determination was made that neither incident was an act of hazing.

However, Reardon said the acts were examples of extremely poor decision-making where joking around was taken too far.

The first incident involved several members of the soccer team in early October, according to athletics director Susan Hutchinson.

While on the team bus, five upperclassmen "loosely" placed duct tape "around the legs" of an underclassman seated on the team bus, Reardon said.

The next morning, the incident was "brought to the school's attention by one of the two coaches on the bus at the time," Hutchinson said.

The boys found responsible for the act were disciplined, but specifics weren't provided due to privacy issues.

The punishments, Reardon said, were appropriate considering the severity of the act.

The football incident - deemed worse than the soccer team's situation by Reardon and his staff - concerned a group of football players who used belts as whips while fooling around in the locker room following practice.

PA senior Matt Allen, one of the 2004-05 team captains, wasn't a participant in the activity. He did, however, witness it.

Allen said members of the team were "goofing off" and "fake fighting" by whipping each other with towels when certain players decided to use their belts.

"I remember (sarcastically) saying, 'You guys are so funny. I don't want to do this. You guys are so stupid sometimes,'" Allen said.

The use of belts lasted "like two seconds, three or four times," the PA senior said. "It wasn't like it happened every day," he added.

Doell said he was on his way into PA to discuss some off-season items with Hutchinson when he ran into a junior who'd observed what happened months earlier.

According to the head coach, the player, while discussing his off-season, made a comment to the effect of, "Hopefully what went on in the locker room doesn't happen again next year."

Doell said the player expressed concerns about having more team harmony.

"When I found out, it was like a body blow," Doell said. "I was concerned. My biggest disappointment was that I wasn't aware this was going on. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm the last guy out of the locker room, locking up. I do that because I want to make sure I have the pulse of the team."

Through 25 years of coaching, Doell added this type of problem never occurred on his watch.

Doell said he immediately told Hutchinson what he learned. Hutchinson quickly informed Reardon.

Soon after, Reardon asked Hutchinson and Assistant Principal Margaret Callahan to meet with every football player individually to take statements.

Reardon said a script of questions was developed so every athlete had to answer the same inquiries from Hutchinson and Callahan.

Based on information supplied by the players, Reardon said punishments were given to four boys - three juniors and one senior.

"We felt we were taking reasonable action in holding them accountable," Reardon said.

Again, due to privacy matters, Reardon wouldn't discuss specifics of the boys. punishments other than to say each was suspended from school for different amounts of time.

"(Punishments) were contingent upon the degree of involvement based on what the kids told us," the headmaster said.

"He had a full team meeting. He aired a lot of these issues," the headmaster said. "The idea is everyone learned their lesson (from the school suspensions) and they will move on from that. Now they're back and they deserve a chance to be better."

"I've thought about (handing out additional punishments) pretty extensively," Doell said. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'm going to see who's coming back to the team before making a determination."

Reardon said he received no complaints from concerned parents after the initial story was reported in the school newspaper. He said, however, he had conversations with the parents of the boys involved.

Hutchinson said she personally called and spoke with the parents of every single player on the football team. The purpose of the phone calls, she added, was to let parents know she had spoken with their sons and to provide them with as much information as she could.

The school's AD also said she called and spoke with the parents of the students disciplined in the soccer incident.

Doell said he received phone calls from parents, ranging from supportive to upset.

"I had two meetings with my kids," Doell said. "I told them if their parents want to sit down or call me, I'd be more than happy to do so."

In Reardon's eight years at PA, he said situations such as these have never happened.

Hutchinson, who's been at PA longer, said the same.

"I've been involved in (PA) athletics since 1986, either as a coach or the athletics director," Hutchinson said. "To my knowledge, I don't know of any incidents like these that have happened."

"What we don't want to happen is for more serious things to occur, which is why we needed to address this in a very serious way," Reardon said. "Adolescents are very susceptible to different types of messages. This was not acceptable. They need to treat kids humanely, fairly and be educated on why that's important."

Before the start of the fall, winter and spring sports seasons, Hutchinson said she has a meeting with the coaches of all the teams to discuss a range of topics.

Currently, Hutchinson said a similar preseason meeting specifically for the student-athletes doesn't exist.

"That's something PA is looking at doing," she said. "Any information we can get across to kids, parents and coaches, that would be beneficial."

"Kids need to understand where the line is," Reardon said. "In the football instance, the line was clearly crossed."

The soccer incident was also serious, but not to the level of what occurred with the football players, Reardon added.

But after speaking with his players - specifically those affected by what unfolded - Doell said they didn't think it was a really big deal. In fact, many athletes expected to return for the 2005 season are already in the weight room preparing for the upcoming gridiron campaign.

"This was not an initiation-type thing," Doell said, stressing the misconduct wasn't a hazing issue.

"The one thing I hope parents do know about our school is that when a problem arises, we will address it - especially when it's about safety," Reardon said. "It would've been very easy to make believe (these incidents) didn't happen."