BOMBSHELL: Mater Dei Hazing Scandal

[Ararar]

50 minutes ago, SoCalFball said:

This whole situation really is sad for all the parties involved…
 

New Details Of Attack

What are the details 

behind paywall for me

[Bodysurf]

8 minutes ago, Ararar said:

What are the details 

behind paywall for me

Nothing new. Honestly it’s underwhelming as I was thinking some bombshell would be revealed. As mentioned in my last post, just Plaschke’s continued outrage that MD was not punished.

[SoCalFball]

27 minutes ago, Ararar said:

What are the details 

He didn’t want his Mater Dei teammates to soak his locker in urine. The 170-pound football player told his parents the fear of retribution prompted him to agree to fight a more experienced 235-pound teammate in the middle of a Mater Dei locker room.

The smaller player, who had yet to play a game for the Monarchs, had been publicly challenged by a third player to compete in the brutal initiation game known as “Bodies,” an organized fight between two players with punches supposedly limited to the torso. The smaller player knew what could happen if he refused to participate.

He had seen the bullying, the teasing, the name-calling and, worst of all, he had seen the lockers of outcasts drenched in urine. He didn’t want to risk enduring that abuse. This was his ticket to acceptance.

 

“He felt if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t fit in, and he wanted to fit in, he wanted to feel like he belonged,” said his father. “He really had no choice. … There are kids that are habitual cases where they are teased, bullied. They do stuff to them ... pour urine in a kid’s locker … and he didn’t want to be that kid.”

 

What happened next led to a lawsuit that has shined a light on the shrouded practices of one of the most celebrated high school football programs in America.

In a February brawl that was captured on two videos spanning 55 seconds, the smaller player, known in the lawsuit as Player One, was badly beaten with three powerful jabs to the head. The final one was a sucker punch. Player One suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose that later required surgery and deep gashes around both eyes.

The family filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident. When the lawsuit was made public last week, the Santa Ana school of 2,149 students found itself in the middle of public outcry that elicited the school president’s bold promise of an independent investigation, a public explanation from the Orange County district attorney about his failure to press charges and a statement from the California Interscholastic Federation abdicating oversight.

“The CIF condemns hazing and maintains that such conduct has no place in the educational setting,” a statement from the federation overseeing high school athletics read. “... On-campus student misconduct involving a violation of a school’s code of conduct and/or State law falls within the responsibility of the school’s administration to investigate and address.”

Seemingly everybody had chimed in except the people most closely involved.

Then this week, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, the parents of Player One spoke out.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed. I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

Father of Player One, who has sued Mater Dei High School

They didn’t want their son to endure the added stress of an interview, and they insisted on anonymity to continue protecting their son’s identity, but in a 90-minute conversation they shared their feelings about an experience they say forever changed their life.

Ten months after the fight, with their son long since having left Mater Dei and with virtually all their once-strong Mater Dei connections severed — “We didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, we helped make the Kool-Aid,” said the father — they are left with a deep sadness that the words in a legal document cannot fully portray.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there,” said his mother. “Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

 

His father talked solemnly about weeping when he saw his son’s battered face after the fight. His mother talked tearfully about staying up all night while applying ice to her son’s bruised head.

His father talked angrily about being ignored or dismissed by Mater Dei officials during his quest for transparency and accountability. His mother talked mournfully about feeling abandoned by the self-proclaimed “community built on Catholic fellowship.”

 

”It wasn’t just the fight, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call the paramedics, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call us, it wasn’t just that people ... changed stories and did all these other manipulative things and tinkered with his CIF transfer,” said his father. “It’s the totality of it all … I told them, you’re a shame to the Catholic organization.”

 

The Times sent a Mater Dei spokeswoman detailed questions about the parents’ statements and she declined interview requests, instead providing the following statement:

“We are aware of the allegations in the present lawsuit. An internal investigation is being conducted by an outside law firm to look into school safety practices, particularly in our athletic program. Regarding the pending litigation, we are confident that the facts will emerge and speak for themselves. Mater Dei does not believe there is merit to the claims made in the lawsuit.”

For Player One’s parents, it is also a human matter. Hearing their pain makes clear that what is now a full-blown school crisis could have been mitigated if the school had responded differently to the family’s concerns.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds. My kid was beat to hell.”

Father of Player One, who filed a hazing lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

 

The family stated in the lawsuit it only received calls of sympathy after the father phoned the school and demanded someone show some compassion for their son. Principal Frances Clare never called, the family said.

Their bruising journey began with the brutality of the fight. The parents said they weren’t informed that their son had been injured until nearly 90 minutes after the Thursday afternoon brawl. They were told to come to the school and pick up Player One because he had hit his head on a sink. That was what Player One initially told officials after being warned by teammates not to snitch.

The minute his father saw his son sitting on a training table under an outdoor tent, he knew the sink story was a lie.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds,” he said. “My kid was beat to hell.”

 

The father said he immediately confronted trainer Kevin Anderson and asked why paramedics had not been summoned for injuries that appeared so serious. He said Anderson wouldn’t answer. The family claimed in a lawsuit “on information and belief” that five days later, Anderson called to say he had been ordered by an unnamed official to not call paramedics.

The Times sent questions for Anderson to a Mater Dei spokesperson and the school declined to comment beyond the general statement.

 

“They have no right to gamble with my son’s life,” said his father.

 

His father angrily escorted his son to their car and rushed him to an urgent care facility where a doctor initially diagnosed him with the head injury and fractured nose. By then, his son had acknowledged he had been hurt playing “Bodies.” It was his attempt to gain acceptance on a team he had just joined on a whim the previous spring, in a sport he had only played for one year in elementary school.

“He had never been in a fight in his life,” said his father. “I don’t think he had ever been in a loud argument.”

Player Two was not made available for comment, but the father of Player Two responded to the allegations through his attorney David Nisson.

“The father thinks it’s unfortunate it happened, he wishes it never happened, it’s always unfortunate when someone gets hurt,” Nisson said. “But he said there’s absolutely no evidence of hazing in this case or in the program, this is the first he’s heard of urine being tossed or anyone being hazed.”

 

The day after the fight, the father of Player One sent two emails to Bruce Rollinson, and he said the legendary coach finally called him and acknowledged the existence of “Bodies” and said he was “in a bind” with disciplining the bigger kid because his father was involved in the coaching staff, an interaction described in the family’s lawsuit against Mater Dei.

“Two things irked us about that call,” said the father. “The coach acknowledged the game. And because of the other kid’s father, the coach was in a bind?”

 

Rollinson has declined multiple Times requests for comment, including an in-person inquiry after Mater Dei won a Division 1 championship game on Nov. 26.

 

Responding to the charge that Rollinson was “in a bind” when disciplining Player Two because of his father’s affiliation with the program, “The father said Player Two was suspended for a minimum of two weeks, so there was no conflict,” his attorney told The Times.

As for allegations of a cover-up, “The father said they did an extremely thorough investigation, there’s no evidence of a cover-up,” Nisson said.

The parents of Player One said Tim O’Hara, Mater Dei dean of students and an assistant football coach, told them administrators decided Player One would be suspended one day for fighting, according to the lawsuit. When the father loudly protested, O’Hara later called back and said the punishment had been changed to an “Assistant Principal’s Contract” in which the student is placed on what the student handbook refers to as, “Discipline Probation.”

“I said, ‘Let’s have a meeting,’’’ recalled the father.

 

The father said the meeting, which occurred the following Monday morning at the school, lasted only minutes. The father said he was incensed when administrators immediately started talking about the “Assistant Principal’s Contract.”

“I told them, ‘You guys continue to miss that mark over and over and over. Literally, this meeting is now done … I’m going to Santa Ana Police Department because you guys have proven you’re not going to be able to handle this,’” the father said.

At the time, their son wasn’t doing great. The traumatic brain injury had initially left him with slurred speech and limited memory, and he was facing an hour-long reconstructive nose surgery.

 

“I told the police, ‘My son was assaulted at the school, the school was not being cooperative, and we feel like a crime was committed,’” said the father.

The father said Santa Ana police recommended filing felony battery charges, but the Orange County District Attorney’s office declined because it deemed the fight as mutual combat.

“There is not a single shred of evidence to show that this was anything other than a mutual combat situation with two willing participants,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement explaining his decision. “... At this point, there is no evidence of hazing or any other crime that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The parents of Player One understood Spitzer’s position but were disappointed in the assertion that because their son was throwing punches, he was not being hazed.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed,” said the father. “I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

 

Also released this week was an open letter from Mater Dei’s president, Father Walter Jenkins, in which he pledged a full independent investigation.

“Mater Dei High School will engage an outside and independent firm to investigate student safety practices specifically within our athletic programs,” the statement read.

 

The parents of Player One are not convinced.

“If they’re sincere about it, this is part of the corrective actions we’re looking for,” said the father. “But it’s a little disingenuous to think that all the participants that are there currently could actually implement those changes.”

He said the family eventually decided to sue in hopes of effecting real changes in the school’s athletic culture.

“We sat at the dinner table and said, ‘we could just move on and not try to implement change, but what if this happens again?’ Something similar or worse?” said the father. “Then we have to sit at this table and look at each other and say, ‘we could have done something and we didn’t. …We just don’t want this happening to another kid.’ ”

 

Two weeks after the incident, Player One transferred to another school.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

The mother of Player One, who filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

But they said Mater Dei wasn’t done with them yet. When Player One tried to join one of new school’s athletic teams, the parents were informed that Mater Dei had placed a disciplinary restriction on his file that prevented him from playing sports at his new school, according to the lawsuit. The restriction was eventually lifted after his new school’s principal intervened, but the message from Mater Dei was clear.

“For me, as a parent, that’s when I knew,” said Player One’s mother, weeping. “They wanted to mess with our family in a way I didn’t understand.”

 

Player One eventually became immersed in his new school’s athletic activities, including playing football this season. This became fodder for recent criticism on social media, with some people wondering why someone so physically and emotionally traumatized by a football locker room fight would still play that sport.

“Doctors have medically cleared him for everything,” said his father. “We were concerned about it but we want to support his decision to get back to a sense of normalcy as soon as possible.”

A month after the fight, after the family said school officials had repeatedly told them there was no video, they were given a copy of the two videos from law enforcement.

The mother won’t watch them. The father tore apart his office when he watched them.

 

“I was throwing chairs, punching cabinets, screaming at the top of my lungs, I lost it,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks at the memory. “That last punch…”

He was particularly enraged by a student using a racial epithet while urging Player Two to attack his son in a video viewed by The Times.

“Get that [N-word,]” the student roars, even though Player One is white. “Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word].”

The father of Player One said the words still live in his mind, an eternal soundtrack to an episode that will haunt him forever.

 

“It’s nasty, it’s evil and angry and hateful,” said the father. “Where is the supervision? Where is the culture?”

As the storm clouds build around Mater Dei’s crisis of character, those are all questions yet unanswered.

[res ipsa loquitur]

A few things of note from today’s article: 

1) The dad didn’t repeat his “if I had a million $ quote” and just said Rollo “acknowledge” the game “bodies” existing. The million $ quote is (maybe) the most sensational line in all of the lawsuit. The fact that the dad didn’t reiterate that it was said suggest that he’s not comfortable standing by that supposed quote. 

2) The allegation of delayed treatment and the trainer being told not to call 911 by an unnamed administrator is alleged on “information and belief.” That’s lawyer speak for, “I was told by someone who told someone that this happened.” Aka they have no corroborating evidence that that actually happened. We’ll see what the trainer says when he’s under oath during what is sure to be an intense deposition by plaintiff’s attorney. 

3) The article does damage control for the plaintiff/parents by admitting that the player immediately continued to play football. The article plays up that it helped him feel “normal” and mentions him being “cleared” by doctor to play. Plaschke does not address that this undermines the claim of permanent injury and that the plaintiff was so beat up that 911 supposedly should have been called. 

4) They’ve added a brand new claim that wasn’t in the lawsuit: that other players supposedly had urine put on their lockers if they didn’t fight. If this is true, it’s very odd that they didn’t put it in the lawsuit (we’ll see if they amend the complaint). As is, the hazing cause of action is likely dismissible. If it is dismissed with leave to amend, they may add the urine claim to an amended complaint. Either way, right now, the new accusation comes purely from the plaintiff, who had not been around the team long (ie had less time to see much of anything happen), saying he heard it had happened or possibly had seen it happen. That is extremely dubious. Again, we’ll see if any evidence corroborates this. Never heard of it when I played at MD.

5) The attorney for the “bigger” player in the fight has added his client was suspended from school for at least 2 weeks—this is separate from him not being allowed to play for all for a season. Conversely, the parents of plaintiff admit plaintiff was only suspended for 1 day for fighting, which the parents of the plaintiff still thought was too long. 

6) The parents in today’s article say that their son had never been in a fight before. They also say they don’t even think he’s ever been in a loud argument before  Really? Yet, the lawsuit and the original article, say that this was the second time he had played bodies. They either lied in today’s article or lied in the original lawsuit.

7) The dad says that when he watched the video in his office, he tore his office apart. He says that he punched his cabinets. He said he threw chairs. I’m a father. I get it. But it also suggests that you’re not the calmest people. Not the most passive people. And framing yourselves as total victims is pretty suspicious. 

Mater Dei’s short statement was that the claims have no merit. They are incentivized to not settle and to actually litigate for the sake of reputation. Let’s see what the facts show. But, while a slanted article by a slanted writer has tried to further ignite emotions today (and get national attention ahead of an inevitable third Heisman for MD), I think the above list continues to support there being a significant amount of embellishing (and some straight lies) by the plaintiff’s family.

[old_e]

35 minutes ago, SoCalFball said:

He didn’t want his Mater Dei teammates to soak his locker in urine. The 170-pound football player told his parents the fear of retribution prompted him to agree to fight a more experienced 235-pound teammate in the middle of a Mater Dei locker room.

The smaller player, who had yet to play a game for the Monarchs, had been publicly challenged by a third player to compete in the brutal initiation game known as “Bodies,” an organized fight between two players with punches supposedly limited to the torso. The smaller player knew what could happen if he refused to participate.

He had seen the bullying, the teasing, the name-calling and, worst of all, he had seen the lockers of outcasts drenched in urine. He didn’t want to risk enduring that abuse. This was his ticket to acceptance.

 

“He felt if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t fit in, and he wanted to fit in, he wanted to feel like he belonged,” said his father. “He really had no choice. … There are kids that are habitual cases where they are teased, bullied. They do stuff to them ... pour urine in a kid’s locker … and he didn’t want to be that kid.”

 

What happened next led to a lawsuit that has shined a light on the shrouded practices of one of the most celebrated high school football programs in America.

In a February brawl that was captured on two videos spanning 55 seconds, the smaller player, known in the lawsuit as Player One, was badly beaten with three powerful jabs to the head. The final one was a sucker punch. Player One suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose that later required surgery and deep gashes around both eyes.

The family filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident. When the lawsuit was made public last week, the Santa Ana school of 2,149 students found itself in the middle of public outcry that elicited the school president’s bold promise of an independent investigation, a public explanation from the Orange County district attorney about his failure to press charges and a statement from the California Interscholastic Federation abdicating oversight.

“The CIF condemns hazing and maintains that such conduct has no place in the educational setting,” a statement from the federation overseeing high school athletics read. “... On-campus student misconduct involving a violation of a school’s code of conduct and/or State law falls within the responsibility of the school’s administration to investigate and address.”

Seemingly everybody had chimed in except the people most closely involved.

Then this week, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, the parents of Player One spoke out.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed. I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

Father of Player One, who has sued Mater Dei High School

They didn’t want their son to endure the added stress of an interview, and they insisted on anonymity to continue protecting their son’s identity, but in a 90-minute conversation they shared their feelings about an experience they say forever changed their life.

Ten months after the fight, with their son long since having left Mater Dei and with virtually all their once-strong Mater Dei connections severed — “We didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, we helped make the Kool-Aid,” said the father — they are left with a deep sadness that the words in a legal document cannot fully portray.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there,” said his mother. “Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

 

His father talked solemnly about weeping when he saw his son’s battered face after the fight. His mother talked tearfully about staying up all night while applying ice to her son’s bruised head.

His father talked angrily about being ignored or dismissed by Mater Dei officials during his quest for transparency and accountability. His mother talked mournfully about feeling abandoned by the self-proclaimed “community built on Catholic fellowship.”

 

”It wasn’t just the fight, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call the paramedics, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call us, it wasn’t just that people ... changed stories and did all these other manipulative things and tinkered with his CIF transfer,” said his father. “It’s the totality of it all … I told them, you’re a shame to the Catholic organization.”

 

The Times sent a Mater Dei spokeswoman detailed questions about the parents’ statements and she declined interview requests, instead providing the following statement:

“We are aware of the allegations in the present lawsuit. An internal investigation is being conducted by an outside law firm to look into school safety practices, particularly in our athletic program. Regarding the pending litigation, we are confident that the facts will emerge and speak for themselves. Mater Dei does not believe there is merit to the claims made in the lawsuit.”

For Player One’s parents, it is also a human matter. Hearing their pain makes clear that what is now a full-blown school crisis could have been mitigated if the school had responded differently to the family’s concerns.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds. My kid was beat to hell.”

Father of Player One, who filed a hazing lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

 

The family stated in the lawsuit it only received calls of sympathy after the father phoned the school and demanded someone show some compassion for their son. Principal Frances Clare never called, the family said.

Their bruising journey began with the brutality of the fight. The parents said they weren’t informed that their son had been injured until nearly 90 minutes after the Thursday afternoon brawl. They were told to come to the school and pick up Player One because he had hit his head on a sink. That was what Player One initially told officials after being warned by teammates not to snitch.

The minute his father saw his son sitting on a training table under an outdoor tent, he knew the sink story was a lie.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds,” he said. “My kid was beat to hell.”

 

The father said he immediately confronted trainer Kevin Anderson and asked why paramedics had not been summoned for injuries that appeared so serious. He said Anderson wouldn’t answer. The family claimed in a lawsuit “on information and belief” that five days later, Anderson called to say he had been ordered by an unnamed official to not call paramedics.

The Times sent questions for Anderson to a Mater Dei spokesperson and the school declined to comment beyond the general statement.

 

“They have no right to gamble with my son’s life,” said his father.

 

His father angrily escorted his son to their car and rushed him to an urgent care facility where a doctor initially diagnosed him with the head injury and fractured nose. By then, his son had acknowledged he had been hurt playing “Bodies.” It was his attempt to gain acceptance on a team he had just joined on a whim the previous spring, in a sport he had only played for one year in elementary school.

“He had never been in a fight in his life,” said his father. “I don’t think he had ever been in a loud argument.”

Player Two was not made available for comment, but the father of Player Two responded to the allegations through his attorney David Nisson.

“The father thinks it’s unfortunate it happened, he wishes it never happened, it’s always unfortunate when someone gets hurt,” Nisson said. “But he said there’s absolutely no evidence of hazing in this case or in the program, this is the first he’s heard of urine being tossed or anyone being hazed.”

 

The day after the fight, the father of Player One sent two emails to Bruce Rollinson, and he said the legendary coach finally called him and acknowledged the existence of “Bodies” and said he was “in a bind” with disciplining the bigger kid because his father was involved in the coaching staff, an interaction described in the family’s lawsuit against Mater Dei.

“Two things irked us about that call,” said the father. “The coach acknowledged the game. And because of the other kid’s father, the coach was in a bind?”

 

Rollinson has declined multiple Times requests for comment, including an in-person inquiry after Mater Dei won a Division 1 championship game on Nov. 26.

 

Responding to the charge that Rollinson was “in a bind” when disciplining Player Two because of his father’s affiliation with the program, “The father said Player Two was suspended for a minimum of two weeks, so there was no conflict,” his attorney told The Times.

As for allegations of a cover-up, “The father said they did an extremely thorough investigation, there’s no evidence of a cover-up,” Nisson said.

The parents of Player One said Tim O’Hara, Mater Dei dean of students and an assistant football coach, told them administrators decided Player One would be suspended one day for fighting, according to the lawsuit. When the father loudly protested, O’Hara later called back and said the punishment had been changed to an “Assistant Principal’s Contract” in which the student is placed on what the student handbook refers to as, “Discipline Probation.”

“I said, ‘Let’s have a meeting,’’’ recalled the father.

 

The father said the meeting, which occurred the following Monday morning at the school, lasted only minutes. The father said he was incensed when administrators immediately started talking about the “Assistant Principal’s Contract.”

“I told them, ‘You guys continue to miss that mark over and over and over. Literally, this meeting is now done … I’m going to Santa Ana Police Department because you guys have proven you’re not going to be able to handle this,’” the father said.

At the time, their son wasn’t doing great. The traumatic brain injury had initially left him with slurred speech and limited memory, and he was facing an hour-long reconstructive nose surgery.

 

“I told the police, ‘My son was assaulted at the school, the school was not being cooperative, and we feel like a crime was committed,’” said the father.

The father said Santa Ana police recommended filing felony battery charges, but the Orange County District Attorney’s office declined because it deemed the fight as mutual combat.

“There is not a single shred of evidence to show that this was anything other than a mutual combat situation with two willing participants,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement explaining his decision. “... At this point, there is no evidence of hazing or any other crime that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The parents of Player One understood Spitzer’s position but were disappointed in the assertion that because their son was throwing punches, he was not being hazed.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed,” said the father. “I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

 

Also released this week was an open letter from Mater Dei’s president, Father Walter Jenkins, in which he pledged a full independent investigation.

“Mater Dei High School will engage an outside and independent firm to investigate student safety practices specifically within our athletic programs,” the statement read.

 

The parents of Player One are not convinced.

“If they’re sincere about it, this is part of the corrective actions we’re looking for,” said the father. “But it’s a little disingenuous to think that all the participants that are there currently could actually implement those changes.”

He said the family eventually decided to sue in hopes of effecting real changes in the school’s athletic culture.

“We sat at the dinner table and said, ‘we could just move on and not try to implement change, but what if this happens again?’ Something similar or worse?” said the father. “Then we have to sit at this table and look at each other and say, ‘we could have done something and we didn’t. …We just don’t want this happening to another kid.’ ”

 

Two weeks after the incident, Player One transferred to another school.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

The mother of Player One, who filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

But they said Mater Dei wasn’t done with them yet. When Player One tried to join one of new school’s athletic teams, the parents were informed that Mater Dei had placed a disciplinary restriction on his file that prevented him from playing sports at his new school, according to the lawsuit. The restriction was eventually lifted after his new school’s principal intervened, but the message from Mater Dei was clear.

“For me, as a parent, that’s when I knew,” said Player One’s mother, weeping. “They wanted to mess with our family in a way I didn’t understand.”

 

Player One eventually became immersed in his new school’s athletic activities, including playing football this season. This became fodder for recent criticism on social media, with some people wondering why someone so physically and emotionally traumatized by a football locker room fight would still play that sport.

“Doctors have medically cleared him for everything,” said his father. “We were concerned about it but we want to support his decision to get back to a sense of normalcy as soon as possible.”

A month after the fight, after the family said school officials had repeatedly told them there was no video, they were given a copy of the two videos from law enforcement.

The mother won’t watch them. The father tore apart his office when he watched them.

 

“I was throwing chairs, punching cabinets, screaming at the top of my lungs, I lost it,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks at the memory. “That last punch…”

He was particularly enraged by a student using a racial epithet while urging Player Two to attack his son in a video viewed by The Times.

“Get that [N-word,]” the student roars, even though Player One is white. “Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word].”

The father of Player One said the words still live in his mind, an eternal soundtrack to an episode that will haunt him forever.

 

“It’s nasty, it’s evil and angry and hateful,” said the father. “Where is the supervision? Where is the culture?”

As the storm clouds build around Mater Dei’s crisis of character, those are all questions yet unanswered.

This whole ordeal just sucks.

[RedZone]

1 hour ago, Bodysurf said:

But at some point MD will have their day to share the second side that nobody has heard yet,

When will that be? 2024 or 2025.

I know rolos lawyers have told him to hide in his bunker, but he will eventually have to come out and explain himself.

[RedZone]

It's been almost a year and no one knows why these kids were fighting in the first place....BUT IT WASN'T "bodies". smdh

Also, I'd probably be willing to bet that the big kid (LB) is not paying a dime to attend mater dei and the little kid was.  Wouldn't that be a bitch!

[RedZone]

14 minutes ago, RedZone said:

Also, I'd probably be willing to bet that the big kid (LB) is not paying a dime to attend mater dei and the little kid was.  Wouldn't that be a bitch!

I'm sure all this is being corrected/changed as I type.......

[Gospeeder]

Lots of conjecture as is always the case in situations like this. Its better to wait to see the videos to verify the facts.

We just finished two trials where the videos determined the truth. This one should be no different.

If, after all the facts are verified... and it turns out Rollo lied or permitted this type of behavior, he should be fired; and if the school tried to use its resources to bury this, they should be sanctioned.

[res ipsa loquitur]

22 minutes ago, Gospeeder said:

Lots of conjecture as is always the case in situations like this. Its better to wait to see the videos to verify the facts.

We just finished two trials where the videos determined the truth. This one should be no different.

If, after all the facts are verified... and it turns out Rollo lied or permitted this type of behavior, he should be fired; and if the school tried to use its resources to bury this, they should be sanctioned.

Totally agree regarding what should happen if the allegations prove true. But if the opposite proves true, I suspect that the story will continue be cited as if true by anyone who wants to find a reason to hate MD football/Rollo for years to come.

An inevitable third Heisman is going to do nothing to lessen the vitriol. 

[MD87]

2 hours ago, Gospeeder said:

Lots of conjecture as is always the case in situations like this. Its better to wait to see the videos to verify the facts.

We just finished two trials where the videos determined the truth. This one should be no different.

If, after all the facts are verified... and it turns out Rollo lied or permitted this type of behavior, he should be fired; and if the school tried to use its resources to bury this, they should be sanctioned.

And if Rollo didn't lie or permit this type of behavior, and if the school didn't use its resources to bury anything, what should happen and to whom?  Hmmm?

[Bodysurf]

MD loses either way. Even if they are exonerated, they are still persona non grata and the most polarizing school out there. Many people desperately want to see MD go down. There will not be a single positive article written about MD. The hatred is real. 

 

[Sammyswordsman]

1 hour ago, Bodysurf said:

MD loses either way. Even if they are exonerated, they are still persona non grata and the most polarizing school out there. Many people desperately want to see MD go down. There will not be a single positive article written about MD. The hatred is real. 

 

Don’t be surprised if they also have trouble getting a full schedule next year.  They will need to play SFA just to get a 8th game 

[SoCalFball]

35 minutes ago, Sammyswordsman said:

Don’t be surprised if they also have trouble getting a full schedule next year.  They will need to play SFA just to get a 8th game 

They had a tough time last year so idk why it would change! 

[HurricaneNick]

39 minutes ago, Sammyswordsman said:

Don’t be surprised if they also have trouble getting a full schedule next year.  They will need to play SFA just to get a 8th game 

This has nothing to do with why teams don’t want the smoke lol.

We’re already in talks with frances. Big boy football.

[On2whls]

13 minutes ago, HurricaneNick said:

This has nothing to do with why teams don’t want the smoke lol.

Do you blame them?  It’s not like MD is just another team.  If your guys aren’t very big and physical, there’s real risk of getting people hurt as well as embarrassed, sort of like player 1 in the alleged scandal.  Sounds like urine in his locker would have been a lot less painful and damaging.  
 

A good schedule for MD would include  SFA, Austin Westlake, The Bishop, STA, and St Johns DC.  

 

[HurricaneNick]

16 minutes ago, On2whls said:

A good schedule for MD would include  SFA, Austin Westlake, The Bishop, STA, and St Johns DC.  

 

Yeah, that’s the schedule we’re after. One of those 5 would step up and play. The others have no interest. Thank God Logan isn’t a pussy. 

[On2whls]

4 minutes ago, HurricaneNick said:

Thank God Logan isn’t a pussy. 

The reality of it is Centennial might be the only CA public that has any business willingly stepping on the field against the current MD.  Any other public (with the possible exception of MV) might be irresponsibly putting their kids in harms way.    The CA privates that may not have all the skill and speed to have a shot at winning, but have the beef, need to step up.

CIF should consider making an exception to allow  MD/SJB to play IMG.  

[HurricaneNick]

5 minutes ago, On2whls said:

CIF should consider making an exception to allow  MD/SJB to play IMG.  

I completely agree with this. I have no problem playing an entire schedule of private schools or if CIF wants to do the private/public split. I think they know Cen10 would run that entire division though. The gap between centennial and mv this year was huge. 

[On2whls]

24 minutes ago, HurricaneNick said:

The gap between centennial and mv this year was huge. 

Yes, the discrepancies are significant. Consider that if you replaced Centennial with any of the three bottom TL teams, most years they would go undefeated and running clock every opponent.  It’s cringeworthy watching Cen10 play everyone in their league except perhaps Norco.  I don’t even watch the games vs Corona, Santiago, or King any more. Fortunately the new league will alleviate the gap to some extent but Cen10 will likely still dominate.  

Maybe there should be roster limits or other restrictions for the big teams?  Eliminate underclassmen from participating in varsity until junior year?  Set limits on transfers, especially for junior and senior year?  Who knows?  
 

The status quo is good for MD, SJB, and Cen10.  But it really does suck for 5-8 in the 8 team playoff scenario.  You could say, tough luck, just deal with it and get better, but realistically, the gap is getting worse each year. 
 

While I was happy to see Cen10 beat MV, the way it happened was dissappointing, for me anyway. Would much rather have seen a closer game. 

[MD87]

50 minutes ago, HurricaneNick said:

I completely agree with this. I have no problem playing an entire schedule of private schools or if CIF wants to do the private/public split. I think they know Cen10 would run that entire division though. The gap between centennial and mv this year was huge. 

I also have no problem with a public/private split for the playoffs, but I think it would be ideal for there to be an open final that features the top 2 ranked teams in the state, regardless of whether they're private or public.  

[Gospeeder]

4 hours ago, MD87 said:

And if Rollo didn't lie or permit this type of behavior, and if the school didn't use its resources to bury anything, what should happen and to whom?  Hmmm?

That's the 60k question and a good one. If there is no (non disclosure) settlement and the video exonerates everyone involved, then the school issues a formal statement supporting the coach and athletic department as a whole, then move on.

[Cal 14]

18 hours ago, Gospeeder said:

That's the 60k question and a good one. If there is no (non disclosure) settlement and the video exonerates everyone involved, then the school issues a formal statement supporting the coach and athletic department as a whole, then move on.

No one would have recorded the threat to get a urine-soaked locker, nor even to set up the fight.  They would have just recorded the fight.

[Ga96]

On 12/5/2021 at 12:47 PM, SoCalFball said:

He didn’t want his Mater Dei teammates to soak his locker in urine. The 170-pound football player told his parents the fear of retribution prompted him to agree to fight a more experienced 235-pound teammate in the middle of a Mater Dei locker room.

The smaller player, who had yet to play a game for the Monarchs, had been publicly challenged by a third player to compete in the brutal initiation game known as “Bodies,” an organized fight between two players with punches supposedly limited to the torso. The smaller player knew what could happen if he refused to participate.

He had seen the bullying, the teasing, the name-calling and, worst of all, he had seen the lockers of outcasts drenched in urine. He didn’t want to risk enduring that abuse. This was his ticket to acceptance.

 

“He felt if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t fit in, and he wanted to fit in, he wanted to feel like he belonged,” said his father. “He really had no choice. … There are kids that are habitual cases where they are teased, bullied. They do stuff to them ... pour urine in a kid’s locker … and he didn’t want to be that kid.”

 

What happened next led to a lawsuit that has shined a light on the shrouded practices of one of the most celebrated high school football programs in America.

In a February brawl that was captured on two videos spanning 55 seconds, the smaller player, known in the lawsuit as Player One, was badly beaten with three powerful jabs to the head. The final one was a sucker punch. Player One suffered a traumatic brain injury, a broken nose that later required surgery and deep gashes around both eyes.

The family filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident. When the lawsuit was made public last week, the Santa Ana school of 2,149 students found itself in the middle of public outcry that elicited the school president’s bold promise of an independent investigation, a public explanation from the Orange County district attorney about his failure to press charges and a statement from the California Interscholastic Federation abdicating oversight.

“The CIF condemns hazing and maintains that such conduct has no place in the educational setting,” a statement from the federation overseeing high school athletics read. “... On-campus student misconduct involving a violation of a school’s code of conduct and/or State law falls within the responsibility of the school’s administration to investigate and address.”

Seemingly everybody had chimed in except the people most closely involved.

Then this week, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, the parents of Player One spoke out.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed. I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

Father of Player One, who has sued Mater Dei High School

They didn’t want their son to endure the added stress of an interview, and they insisted on anonymity to continue protecting their son’s identity, but in a 90-minute conversation they shared their feelings about an experience they say forever changed their life.

Ten months after the fight, with their son long since having left Mater Dei and with virtually all their once-strong Mater Dei connections severed — “We didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid, we helped make the Kool-Aid,” said the father — they are left with a deep sadness that the words in a legal document cannot fully portray.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there,” said his mother. “Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

 

His father talked solemnly about weeping when he saw his son’s battered face after the fight. His mother talked tearfully about staying up all night while applying ice to her son’s bruised head.

His father talked angrily about being ignored or dismissed by Mater Dei officials during his quest for transparency and accountability. His mother talked mournfully about feeling abandoned by the self-proclaimed “community built on Catholic fellowship.”

 

”It wasn’t just the fight, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call the paramedics, it wasn’t just that they didn’t call us, it wasn’t just that people ... changed stories and did all these other manipulative things and tinkered with his CIF transfer,” said his father. “It’s the totality of it all … I told them, you’re a shame to the Catholic organization.”

 

The Times sent a Mater Dei spokeswoman detailed questions about the parents’ statements and she declined interview requests, instead providing the following statement:

“We are aware of the allegations in the present lawsuit. An internal investigation is being conducted by an outside law firm to look into school safety practices, particularly in our athletic program. Regarding the pending litigation, we are confident that the facts will emerge and speak for themselves. Mater Dei does not believe there is merit to the claims made in the lawsuit.”

For Player One’s parents, it is also a human matter. Hearing their pain makes clear that what is now a full-blown school crisis could have been mitigated if the school had responded differently to the family’s concerns.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds. My kid was beat to hell.”

Father of Player One, who filed a hazing lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

 

The family stated in the lawsuit it only received calls of sympathy after the father phoned the school and demanded someone show some compassion for their son. Principal Frances Clare never called, the family said.

Their bruising journey began with the brutality of the fight. The parents said they weren’t informed that their son had been injured until nearly 90 minutes after the Thursday afternoon brawl. They were told to come to the school and pick up Player One because he had hit his head on a sink. That was what Player One initially told officials after being warned by teammates not to snitch.

The minute his father saw his son sitting on a training table under an outdoor tent, he knew the sink story was a lie.

“My son’s face looked like Larry Holmes after 15 rounds,” he said. “My kid was beat to hell.”

 

The father said he immediately confronted trainer Kevin Anderson and asked why paramedics had not been summoned for injuries that appeared so serious. He said Anderson wouldn’t answer. The family claimed in a lawsuit “on information and belief” that five days later, Anderson called to say he had been ordered by an unnamed official to not call paramedics.

The Times sent questions for Anderson to a Mater Dei spokesperson and the school declined to comment beyond the general statement.

 

“They have no right to gamble with my son’s life,” said his father.

 

His father angrily escorted his son to their car and rushed him to an urgent care facility where a doctor initially diagnosed him with the head injury and fractured nose. By then, his son had acknowledged he had been hurt playing “Bodies.” It was his attempt to gain acceptance on a team he had just joined on a whim the previous spring, in a sport he had only played for one year in elementary school.

“He had never been in a fight in his life,” said his father. “I don’t think he had ever been in a loud argument.”

Player Two was not made available for comment, but the father of Player Two responded to the allegations through his attorney David Nisson.

“The father thinks it’s unfortunate it happened, he wishes it never happened, it’s always unfortunate when someone gets hurt,” Nisson said. “But he said there’s absolutely no evidence of hazing in this case or in the program, this is the first he’s heard of urine being tossed or anyone being hazed.”

 

The day after the fight, the father of Player One sent two emails to Bruce Rollinson, and he said the legendary coach finally called him and acknowledged the existence of “Bodies” and said he was “in a bind” with disciplining the bigger kid because his father was involved in the coaching staff, an interaction described in the family’s lawsuit against Mater Dei.

“Two things irked us about that call,” said the father. “The coach acknowledged the game. And because of the other kid’s father, the coach was in a bind?”

 

Rollinson has declined multiple Times requests for comment, including an in-person inquiry after Mater Dei won a Division 1 championship game on Nov. 26.

 

Responding to the charge that Rollinson was “in a bind” when disciplining Player Two because of his father’s affiliation with the program, “The father said Player Two was suspended for a minimum of two weeks, so there was no conflict,” his attorney told The Times.

As for allegations of a cover-up, “The father said they did an extremely thorough investigation, there’s no evidence of a cover-up,” Nisson said.

The parents of Player One said Tim O’Hara, Mater Dei dean of students and an assistant football coach, told them administrators decided Player One would be suspended one day for fighting, according to the lawsuit. When the father loudly protested, O’Hara later called back and said the punishment had been changed to an “Assistant Principal’s Contract” in which the student is placed on what the student handbook refers to as, “Discipline Probation.”

“I said, ‘Let’s have a meeting,’’’ recalled the father.

 

The father said the meeting, which occurred the following Monday morning at the school, lasted only minutes. The father said he was incensed when administrators immediately started talking about the “Assistant Principal’s Contract.”

“I told them, ‘You guys continue to miss that mark over and over and over. Literally, this meeting is now done … I’m going to Santa Ana Police Department because you guys have proven you’re not going to be able to handle this,’” the father said.

At the time, their son wasn’t doing great. The traumatic brain injury had initially left him with slurred speech and limited memory, and he was facing an hour-long reconstructive nose surgery.

 

“I told the police, ‘My son was assaulted at the school, the school was not being cooperative, and we feel like a crime was committed,’” said the father.

The father said Santa Ana police recommended filing felony battery charges, but the Orange County District Attorney’s office declined because it deemed the fight as mutual combat.

“There is not a single shred of evidence to show that this was anything other than a mutual combat situation with two willing participants,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement explaining his decision. “... At this point, there is no evidence of hazing or any other crime that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The parents of Player One understood Spitzer’s position but were disappointed in the assertion that because their son was throwing punches, he was not being hazed.

 

“Willingness has nothing to do with being hazed, you can be willing and be hazed,” said the father. “I pledged a fraternity and the things I allowed them to do to me still was hazing. I did it willfully because I wanted to belong.”

 

Also released this week was an open letter from Mater Dei’s president, Father Walter Jenkins, in which he pledged a full independent investigation.

“Mater Dei High School will engage an outside and independent firm to investigate student safety practices specifically within our athletic programs,” the statement read.

 

The parents of Player One are not convinced.

“If they’re sincere about it, this is part of the corrective actions we’re looking for,” said the father. “But it’s a little disingenuous to think that all the participants that are there currently could actually implement those changes.”

He said the family eventually decided to sue in hopes of effecting real changes in the school’s athletic culture.

“We sat at the dinner table and said, ‘we could just move on and not try to implement change, but what if this happens again?’ Something similar or worse?” said the father. “Then we have to sit at this table and look at each other and say, ‘we could have done something and we didn’t. …We just don’t want this happening to another kid.’ ”

 

Two weeks after the incident, Player One transferred to another school.

”You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe. … I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. ... It’s like, you failed my child.”

The mother of Player One, who filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei High School

But they said Mater Dei wasn’t done with them yet. When Player One tried to join one of new school’s athletic teams, the parents were informed that Mater Dei had placed a disciplinary restriction on his file that prevented him from playing sports at his new school, according to the lawsuit. The restriction was eventually lifted after his new school’s principal intervened, but the message from Mater Dei was clear.

“For me, as a parent, that’s when I knew,” said Player One’s mother, weeping. “They wanted to mess with our family in a way I didn’t understand.”

 

Player One eventually became immersed in his new school’s athletic activities, including playing football this season. This became fodder for recent criticism on social media, with some people wondering why someone so physically and emotionally traumatized by a football locker room fight would still play that sport.

“Doctors have medically cleared him for everything,” said his father. “We were concerned about it but we want to support his decision to get back to a sense of normalcy as soon as possible.”

A month after the fight, after the family said school officials had repeatedly told them there was no video, they were given a copy of the two videos from law enforcement.

The mother won’t watch them. The father tore apart his office when he watched them.

 

“I was throwing chairs, punching cabinets, screaming at the top of my lungs, I lost it,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks at the memory. “That last punch…”

He was particularly enraged by a student using a racial epithet while urging Player Two to attack his son in a video viewed by The Times.

“Get that [N-word,]” the student roars, even though Player One is white. “Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word] ... Get that [N-word].”

The father of Player One said the words still live in his mind, an eternal soundtrack to an episode that will haunt him forever.

 

“It’s nasty, it’s evil and angry and hateful,” said the father. “Where is the supervision? Where is the culture?”

As the storm clouds build around Mater Dei’s crisis of character, those are all questions yet unanswered.

Sounds like hazing to me. 

[Ga96]

On 12/5/2021 at 3:18 PM, res ipsa loquitur said:

Totally agree regarding what should happen if the allegations prove true. But if the opposite proves true, I suspect that the story will continue be cited as if true by anyone who wants to find a reason to hate MD football/Rollo for years to come.

An inevitable third Heisman is going to do nothing to lessen the vitriol. 

At best mater dump recruits players to win with the promise of scholarships and that has been documented in previous instances.