"The presidents of NESCAC prioritized this issue," said Fish, who held sessions in Johnson Chapel.
"There seems to be a big national movement to address [hazing]," said Dean of Students Ben Lieber. "Even if people aren't coming forward, [information] sessions raise people's consciousness."
Fish presented a worksheet to athletes that outlined different initiation procedures and discussed which might be considered hazing. Among the categories on the list were playing drinking games until vomiting, being dropped off a mile from campus and having to walk back and carrying team equipment after each practice.
"Hazing is any behavior that is physically, emotionally or psychologically abusive ... For the purpose of admission into a group," Fish said in his presentation.
"Eighty-five percent think it is not hazing to carry team equipment after each practice," said Fish. However, he added that, "all of these examples are now in the judicial system."
"People have to err on the side of caution," said Lieber about preventing incidents of hazing on campus. "What's been the case in the past is a lot of egregious stuff was gotten away with."
According to Fish, carrying team equipment might cross the line into hazing when it comes with an implied threat. "You have to carry the equipment-or else," said Fish, giving an example of when such activity qualifies as hazing.
Fish added that he thinks these kinds of transgressions are occuring at Amherst. "I do believe things are happening that cross the line," he said.
Some athletes in attendence were angry that the school mandated attendence at the meeting for athletes only.
"I think it's ludicrous that they only make athletes do this," said Max Woolf '04.
Fish agreed that hazing is not only a problem among sports teams.
"It's not just a student-athlete issue. It's a student issue," said Fish. "It can be just as prevalent in the glee club or the band or the chess club."
Athletes' Perspectives on Hazing
First-year initiation is prevalent among varsity and club teams on many campuses. Though some Amherst players choose to participate in initiation rites, many teams here make it clear that a choice to refrain also exists.
"If anyone did not want to do something or did not want to participate at all, that was fine," said a current female rugby player, who asked to remain anonymous. She added that many players participated in initiation but did not drink any alcohol.
"They always make it clear that it is a choice," said one male rugby player.
Initiation usually involves drinking games, physical exertion under the influence of alcohol, such as running laps around a field, scavenger hunts and placing oneself in embarrassing situations, including unconventional dressing and humiliating performances.
"We dressed up in stupid costumes that were mildly humiliating," said the female rugby player.
One team required players to procure a hickey from a woman in a specified dorm room and other objects such as bottles of alcohol, sex toys and posters.
Another sport held a competition between the men's and women's team, in which drunken first-years performed the Lord Jeffery Amherst song. A male team member said that they "had to preform," but drinking was optional. "One guy did not drink," he noted.
The male rugby player said that part of his initiation included writing a poem and reciting it to the women's field hockey team. "It was humorous," he said. "It was embarrassing but it did not scar me."
Members of club sports, like rugby, were not required to attend the talk.
One of the most pressing questions about first-year initiation is how closely it constitutes hazing and how participating athletes are affected by the practice. Nearly all initiation activities on campus are optional. However, one male athlete said, "Most, I emphasize most, of the team-oriented party activities are not optional. As a member of the group, you are expected to attend these events that are said to formulate a sense of 'team.'"
He added, "Participating willingly in beer chugs or playing beer games is a frequently occurring form of team bonding. People who do not drink alcohol will not be forced to against their will; they are asked, but not coerced in any physical manner."
A female athlete said of her recent initiation, "The amount of alcohol involved in the actual initiation games was not even enough to make me mildly tipsy."
The male rugby player believes that the purpose of initiation activities is "to foster team spirit."
"I don't know that it did that exactly," he added.
Most athletes who have participated in initiation activities do not consider themselves victims of hazing.
"Based upon my experiences with Amherst College athletics, the magnitude and frequency of hazing related activities is minimal," said a male soccer player.
Many athletes see their initiation as a positive experience; many also consider the experience "funny."
The Alfred Report
In an interview with The Student, Fish pointed to a study done by Alfred University that explored initiation rites in American colleges.
"Out of 325,000 athletes, 250,000 had been hazed," Fish said.
According to a report issued by Alfred that explored hazing among NCAA athletes, 80 percent have been subjected to some sort of "questionable or unacceptable activity."
Questionable activities include yelling, cursing or swearing, tattooing, piercing, shaving or branding, food and sleep deprivation and participation in calisthenics not related to a sport. Unacceptable activities, according to the report, include alcohol consumption and drinking contests, making prank phone calls, destroying or stealing property, engaging in sexual acts, paddling, whipping, beating or kicking and kidnapping or transporting and abandoning.
While 42 percent of athletes said that they consumed alcohol while on recruitment visits, the report found that only seven percent of coaches, five percent of athletic directors and nine percent of deans believed recruits were being forced to consume alcohol.
"Your coaches are craving to know this sort of thing-to engage in a dialogue," said Fish in his presentation to the athletes. "We can't duck our heads in the sand."
According to the report, many athletic directors and coaches felt that hazing was not a prevalent issue on their campuses.
"In their written responses," the report said, "they made comments such as: 'This is a non-issue! It doesn't happen here;' '… this is one of the more ridiculous questionnaires I've ever been asked to complete;' '… [hazing] has never come up at any meeting in student life committee. If it happened, it would be an isolated case.'"
Athletic Director Peter Gooding said that the issue is being taken seriously by the College.
"There's been a changing consciousness in society," said Gooding. "As things evolve, we now find ourselves in a position where behaviors that were almost supported 20 years ago are absolutely inappropriate."
"It's hard to define where tradition stops and hazing starts," said Fish. "Hazing is a complicated issue."
Fish told the athletes during his presentation that most participants in hazing incidents are pressured into acting.
"[In] every major incident that I've been a part of, one or two people are really into it," said Fish. "Eighteen others don't really care" but just go along with it anyhow.
"Why don't they say anything?" asked Fish. "Pressure."
The University of Vermont
Recently, one of the most widely- publicized incidents of hazing involved the University of Vermont hockey team. At a party in October of 1999, new members of the team were asked to shave their genitals, forced to eat a fish pie until they vomited and had to do push-ups naked, dipping their genitals into a glass of beer, according to a hazing activist in an interview with ESPN. If they did enough push-ups, they had to drink their own glass of beer, but if they did not do enough, they had to drink the glass of the person next to them.
A lawsuit was filed by Corey La-tulippe, a student at the University who tried out for the team and was subject to the initiation rituals.
According to the U.S. College Hockey website, the lawsuit alleged that "freshmen were forced to drink warm beer while lying on the floor in thong underwear while players poured and spat beer at them, and that they were also made to drink shots of liquor by passing them to each other mouth-to-mouth."
The lawsuit also alleged that La-tulippe was told that he would have to perform intercourse with a sheep and that he was forced to give the team captain his credit card, on which a $900 rafting trip to Maine was purchased.
In a report issued by the attorney general of the state of Vermont, it was found that "the essence of virtually all of Corey Latulippe's hazing allegations relating to an October 2, 1999 hockey team party is true and supported by the facts."
The attorney general also strongly suggested that the state legislature pass laws making hazing a crime.
According to Massachusetts state law, "Whoever is a principal organizer or participant in the crime of hazing ... shall be punished by a fine of not more than three thousand dollars or by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than one year, or both such fine and imprisonment."
The law defines hazing as "any conduct or method of initiation into any student organization, whether on public or private property, which willfully or recklessly endangers the physical or mental health of any student or other person."