Read the debate intro and Bleacher Fan’s argument that hazing is acceptable in sports.
See how long you can hold your breath. Now see if you can bend a spoon with your mind. Now haze someone. What do all of these activities have in common? They are all pointless with zero redeeming value.
Hazing is bad for sports for three primary reasons.
Reason #1: Waste of Time
Playing sports, at either the collegiate level or the professional level, requires an enormous amount of time. Using football as an example, there is practice time, stretching time, film room time, rep time, conditioning time, weight lifting time, playbook study time… plus all the stuff people normally do like sleep and eat. If a player is a good player, then they have media time, autograph signing time, so on and so forth. With all of those elements necessary to the life of an athlete, why would an athlete build extra time into their schedule for a pointless waste of time like hazing a teammate? The time it takes to plan a hazing incident, perpetrate it and deal with the aftermath is all time better spent preparing for a game. Plus, it can get a player into unnecessary, easily avoidable legal trouble.
Reason #2: Bad for Team Chemistry
Not everyone in every locker room wants to haze a person. As in any social situation, there are players who will side with the ones who are hazing a player, and players who will defend the player who is being hazed. It is human nature to take sides. As those sides become more prominent they become more divisive and drive a wedge between a team. You know what a team is? It is a group of people working toward a COMMON goal. Any behavior that distracts from the common goal should be immediately eliminated from the team dynamic. And, it should not be up to the coaches to eliminate a negative activity. If everyone on the team truly is working toward the same common goal, then none of them would be willing to engage in activity may harm the team dynamic.
Reason #3: Hazing is Stupid
Hazing is stupid. It is designed, supposedly, as a way to welcome new players into a team. In reality it is the old, established guard of the team making newcomers feel unwelcome. How is that in any way a characteristic of a winning team?
Reason #4: Rite of Passage
Either a player contributes to a winning team or they do not. There is no middle ground. It is not more complicated than that. Therefore, labeling hazing as a rite of passage for a new player on a team is ludicrous. A rite of passage should always be focused on the task at hand. The first hit in the NFL is a rite of passage – something everyone must encounter as they grow. Hazing is not something everyone must encounter.
There is a substantial difference between a hazing incident and a prank (a prank defined as many of the examples Loyal Homer provided in the intro). Frankly, Coye Francies of the Cleveland Browns overreacted. That sounded like a harmless prank. More often than not in sports, hazing turns violent and can scar emotionally.
Here is a list of more than 40 sports hazing incidents that have a negative outcome. Each was avoidable. None took place on a championship team. If the goal is winning championships, it appears that hazing must be eliminated.
