For almost 20 years, the coach of the high school football team in of Sayreville, New Jersey, talked of character as he led the boys to state championships. The fate of the same coach, and four of his staff members, now hinges on a school board vote as the town reckons with allegations that hazing was pervasive in the team’s locker room.
Sayreville War Memorial High School has already cancelled its football season, and seven varsity football players were arrested last week on charges associated with hazing this month. Prosecutors are weighing whether to try the students in adult court.
A closed-door school board vote Tuesday is likely to address the fate of the town’s football coaches, according to a Saturday report by New Jersey Advance. The district’s official public meeting agenda lists only “personnel matters” and “student matters” as topics of discussion in its closed meeting.
While the coaches aren’t accused of knowing about the hazing, the allegations have turned them into divisive figures. They have been suspended with pay from their teaching positions in the district, according to the same Advance report.
What exactly occurred in the football team’s locker room is unclear. Official comment is sparse, and most reports rely on unnamed or anonymous sources.
Freshman victims and witnesses told the New York Times that they were held down by varsity players, kicked and groped. The initiation practice was apparently called “ass taking”.
One of the most widely circulated accounts of what “hazing” might have constituted in the boys locker room came from NJ.com, which reported a varsity player may have anally penetrated a freshman player with his finger.
Attempts by the New York Times to confirm the same have been met with differing witness accounts. The Times spoke with three of the four alleged hazing victims, all of whom are unnamed because they are juveniles. Two told the newspaper they did not consider what happened to be serious.
The hazing allegedly occurred between 19 and 29 September, according to anonymous law enforcement statements to NJ.com and the Times. Players face a litany of charges, including sexual assault, criminal restraint, hazing and conspiracy to commit criminal sexual contact.
Some former players have stepped forward to support Najjar. NJ.com interviewed many of them on Saturday, and a MoveOn.org petition defending him has been signed by nearly 800 people by Tuesday afternoon.
“Character counts with Coach Najjar and he is and has been a positive roll [sic] model for many young men on his team,” wrote one, identified as Tammy Schmidt. “It would be a mistake for Sayreville to remove Coach Najjar from his position, he is needed more than ever now.”
“I would (gladly) put my son in Coach Najjar’s hands,” former player Yazid Jackson told the New York Daily News. “I would do it because he coaches you in life more than anything. I would do it because I know what he means to me and that the lessons he taught me are still with me today.”
Najjar hasn’t spoken since the allegations came to light.
The school’s superintendent and a former assistant football coach, Richard Labbe, hasn’t commented since canceling the high school football season, calling the hazing “pervasive” and “tolerated” by students.
Sayreville police did not immediately return the Guardian’s calls for comment, and have forwarded past calls by the Guardian to the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office. According to the Times on Sunday, the police continue to forward calls for comment to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also did not return the Guardian’s calls for comment, have declined to comment in the past and to the Times.
