Hazing In Professional Sports

The Time IS Now for Professional Sport to Establish Hazing Policies
By Hank Nuwer

Ralph Houk, the manager of the New York Yankees who died at 90 this month, was a tough leader who never needed to exhibit his toughness. His service to the country on D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge was all his players needed to know about his character.
Perhaps the best-known quotation attributed to Houk appeared in his obituary. “I don't think you can humiliate a player and expect him to perform," he once said.
Houk's career and life illustrate an important lesson. You can't demand respect from subordinates, be they athletes, soldiers, fraternity members or everyday workers. That respect is given because it is merited.
And that holds true for senior members of a team, brigade, Greek or occupational organization. They are entitled to respect by virtue of their accomplishments as athletes and team leaders. Moreover, the respect shown them by fans has financial implications. These athletes, many of them anyway, not only earn respect, but the best of them like Houk, go to their graves with an illustrious sheen attached to their lives.
The best of these earn the sobriquet of legend. And their plaques grace various Halls of Fame from Cooperstown to Canton to Springfield.
Let me make one thing clear. I don't begrudge athletes-- especially legendary athletes--their fame, their salaries, their lifetime opportunities to enjoy a professional existence playing sports the rest of us cherish from the stands.
But over time we fans have seen athletes tarnish the very sports that have give them a comfortable living and eventually deprived them of the very self-respect that drives or drove them on the playing fields to do their utmost and, if the stars were all in alignment, to win or establish personal or team bests.
There isn't a sports-loving elementary school kid or grizzled old timer that doesn't know the problems of sport. Steroids and illicit performance-enhancing drugs. Booster bribes and payoffs. Gambling, point shaving, domestic abuse and sex scandals. Hazing.
Hazing? "Wa-aaaa-it a minute?" you say.
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