West football backers blast cancellation of season

Hundreds of supporters of the Central Bucks High School West football team went to a public school board meeting Tuesday night to express their dissatisfaction with last week's announcement that administrators had canceled the rest of the season amid allegations of hazing.

In measured yet passionate cadences, a dozen community members - including parents, a student, a recent alum, and an assistant coach - took turns addressing members of the Central Bucks school board, saying their decision had been made hastily, affected students beyond those on the team, or was an overreaction.

"This was a reckless rush to judgment by an administration that was looking to cover their butts," said football parent Ed Shields to thunderous applause.

The meeting was the first time that district officials, including Superintendent David Weitzel, had spoken publicly since last week's surprise announcement. Weitzel offered further details about the events that allegedly took place at a preseason team picnic in August, describing three alleged activities that rookie players had to go through to be welcomed onto the team.

But the meeting did little to quell the anger that has rippled through much of the community - or to resolve a host of issues that remain unclear or contested.

Nearly everyone who spoke expressed support for suspended head coach Brian Hensel, who sat in the front of the auditorium and had released his own defiant statement before the meeting. Dozens of his players sat nearby, wearing uniforms or letter jackets.

After the meeting, Shields said he had attended in hope the board would apologize. "We didn't hear anything," he said.

"I'm kind of mad, what can I say?" said Gabriel Shults, a 2013 alumnus and former football player.

Police are investigating what happened at the August picnic, at which all of the alleged hazing was said to have occurred. At the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, Weitzel reported what administrators had learned thus far.

New details related to activities that rookie players were allegedly urged to perform. All were done the afternoon of the picnic, Weitzel said, and no coaches were present.

One activity, Weitzel said, was called "sugar cookie," where fully clothed players were wetted down, then covered in powder.

Another, which Weitzel said players called "waterboarding," involved players - again, clothed - being put into a shower with a towel over their head.

The third was a game called "slap it, lick it, grab it, fondle it," Weitzel said, an activity popularized by the Comedy Central show Tosh.0. During that game, some players touched the private areas of others, Weitzel said. Again, he added, players were clothed.

Weitzel said seniors orchestrated the activities, juniors watched, and about 20 sophomores participated, passing through each activity like a station. Once they completed the acts, Weitzel added, the players were told: "You are now part of the team."

Those facts motivated Weitzel's decision to act quickly, he said. He said, "Students were not forthcoming with the details" when administrators were investigating claims that a student was punched at the picnic for resisting a haircut, which turned out to be false. During that investigation, administrators heard of the other activities, and more interviews helped them piece the puzzle together, he said.

Board President Paul Faulkner said Tuesday night that he fully supported Weitzel's decision to suspend the program and the coaches, and he called the students' alleged activities "intimidating and humiliating," justifying the swift response. Two other board members who spoke during the meeting agreed.

The audience clearly did not.

Nearly every speech from a crowd member was peppered by outbursts of applause. While tempers mostly remained calm, and many said what the players did was stupid, the audience was clearly supportive of Hensel.

Hours before the meeting, the coach, through his attorney, released his own statement, saying that the hazing was a "one-time, isolated incident" and that he was not present the day it occurred. Had coaches known about it, Hensel said, they would have responded appropriately. Any attempt to paint the football program as having a culture permitting hazing, he wrote, is "not just unfair, but patently false."

After the meeting, Hensel said: "You couldn't ask for anything other than the support we got in that room tonight." He declined to elaborate.

Starting this winter, Weitzel said, the district will enact procedures to ensure that all teams are instructed on how to behave within the school's code of conduct.

Shields said that whatever happens can't make up for how the football season was canceled.

"The way they handled this," he said, "was inexcusable."