At Fontana Miller High, a hazing incident results in the suspension of several football players

I fully understand initiations and I agree when people say that todays' youth is too soft. However, I do not think that kids should be getting jumped into a team. There are other organizations that "jump people in" and they're called gangs.

being tough has nothing to do with your parents or what you do as a kid it all about how you think the kids that run home to their mommies when someone messes with them usually think they deserve to be there and that they dont need to work. Im still young when i started playing me and my team mates got hazed not one of us ran home to mommy we took it with a smile its a test to see if you can handle what your getting into. But jumping someone in is out of the question.

bully said:
i bet too soft was a bully growing up.

No, I wasn't a bully at all. As a matter of fact, as a child I myself was bullyed a couple of times but I never ran home and cried to my parents. I learned to stand up for myself and fought back. The first time I punched back I suprised even myself. It didn't even matter if I won or lost, I quikly found out that as long as I protected myself even the bully would back off. The situation took care of it self. That's the way things were back then.

As I grew up and played sports, I realized I wasn't the most athletic kid out there but I pressed myself to get better. We didn't have DVDs or instructional Videos back then so I would go to the library and read books on the fundementals of what ever sport I was playing at that time. I remember reading a book on hitting. There was an illistration of a batting tee. Now this was around 1969 or 70. There wasn't a tee ball division in little league at that time and the local sporting goods didn't even sell battings tees. I went into my garage and made my own tee, went into the back yard and hit balls off the fence, (wiffle balls, tennis balls, whatever I could find) by the next season I was one of the best hitters in the league. That's the way it was back then...we thought of ways to resolve our issues...kids worked things out for themselves. Nowadays, kids rely on mom and dad to resolve things for them. Man, times were great in the "good old days"!

Dear Too Soft,

you should be ashamed of yourself. You must have been a bully in your younger days because you're still one today. Shame on you!

tell me,
Too soft is right. Where do you draw the line? The kids themselves did that, without mommy. You either got tough, or you went and played soccer.

i bet too soft was a bully growing up.

too soft,
I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying but where do you draw the line? initiation OK but allowing your player to get jumped on a daily basis, with wounds to prove it? how far is too far?

The problem with some (note the word, SOME) of todays youth is that they're too soft. I'm a 50 yr old man and i have been a "successful" youth sports coach for over 30 yrs. Back in the day (in most neighborhoods) kids played all day long, especially during the summer. Hide & seek, tag, jump rope, hop scotch, climbed trees, jumped fences, played pick-up baseball, football, basketball...whatever...they ran around and hung out with their friends. Sometime they roughhoused and they played hard outside during the hot summer days and didn't go home until it was dinner time. You older folks remember that right? Well now the kids stay inside and play video games and watch TV. If they have to go outside on a hot day (over 75°F) they cry...it's too hot...I'm too tired! Many kids don't even know their neighbor. There's almost no extra corricular activity outside of school. Many kids are just plain lazy these days. Then they decide they want to play an orginized sport. What they didn't realized is, it takes hard work & disipline to be successful in any sport. Many just quit or just lag the season out.

The other aspect is the bonding and brotherhood aspect. Every athlete knows there's some sort of initiation at times. Yes players may be made to do something silly or embarassing during this initiation period. Sometimes players get roughed up but nobody gets seriously injured. This type of initiation has been going on for ages. The problem is these soft kids go home and cry to mommy & daddy. Them mommy & daddy go to the school and make a BIG DEAL out of nothing because wimpy little johnny got his feelings hurt. This is pathetic! Parents, it's time to toughen up your children! Geez quit producing a bunch of weak minded sissys! Boy, we wonder why this world is going to hell in a handbasket...just look at some of todays youth.

The have done well the past few years: 10-2 and 11-1 in successive years. The problem is that successful staff left because of too many issues with the administration and other boys sports head coaches. That hazing crap never on their watch..............and it was certainly not encouraged. What happened at Miller is an example of poor leadership and poor choice of a head coach.

Oh yeah, you guys should remember that most articles written by reporters have a 70% chance of being untrue or not fact checked. This article is one of these types.

thats why the program struggles, no disapline !!!

Exactly, pussys. little johnnys mom got mad and his mom called the district. its called part of the game

Pussies