Amid allegations, Drury says hazing 'will not be tolerated'

Drury University Director of Athletics Mark Fisher was blunt Monday night when asked about a perceived culture of hazing within the school’s athletic department.

“I do not believe that,” Fisher said at a hastily called press briefing to discuss allegations levied by former men’s swimmer Evan Petrich about hazing within the program.

On social media last week and through in-person interviews, Petrich outlined the treatment he endured as a freshman on the swimming team in fall of 2015.

Petrich said physical and mental abuse, including forced nudity and alcohol consumption, being pelted with dodgeballs while naked, and being forced to watch pornographic movies, have chased him from the sport.

The 18-year-old said he has been diagnosed with conversion disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, with doctors saying it’s a direct result of the hazing.

He’s still not happy with the school’s reaction to what happened.

“I feel like the school needed to do something to make it clear they aren’t going to tolerate this,” Petrich said. “With this, the school is tolerating it. They are just saying, ‘Oh, do it once, but just don’t do it again. Or if you do it again, make sure we don’t know about it.’ ”

Fisher and Tijuana Julian, the school’s dean of students, did not refute Petrich's hazing allegations.

The allegations were investigated last fall after Petrich made his initial complaint over the summer, and 16 swimmers were interviewed.

“We had enough things that were confirmed that he told us, I think there were enough common things that we found there was a policy violation,” Julian said.

The school responded by toughening its penalties for hazing, outlined in a statement released on Monday afternoon, saying it “would not tolerate such behavior among student-athletes.”

It’s the second hazing incident from the men’s swimming program in a seven-year span. Accusations of hazing led to the team losing its midseason training trip to Hawaii in 2009. Now there’s the September 2015 incident, which led to the current toughening of the school’s rules.

“Anytime we have an issue with hazing, it’s disappointing,” Fisher said. “We want to make sure we uphold our students’ dignity, and we protect them.

“We have to make sure that as leaders on this campus, we do everything that we can to ensure that it doesn’t happen, not only of our students, our student-athletes, and then also our coaches and those involved within in the program.”

Fisher was asked about the role of longtime coach Brian Reynolds, who was en route to Springfield from the Hawaii training trip on Monday and not available for comment.

“I believe that if our coaches knew this was going on, that they would put a stop to it,” Fisher said. “The coaches are leaders, leaders of the program and leaders on this campus. They have an important role. They have to make sure that all the students within their programs are held to a higher standard. They are at the forefront of making sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Reynolds was the leader of the program both when the 2009 incident happened, and when the 2015 allegations were levied. Fisher would not discuss any possible punishment for coaches.

“Those are personnel issues, so we aren’t able to discuss that at this time,” Fisher said.

The changes to the policy, released publicly on Monday, have been in effect since last fall, Julian said.

Those steps are:

• Implemented educational programming about hazing to all student-athletes to better inform them on this issue. Additionally, this topic will be a part of the broader freshmen orientation program for all incoming students beginning this summer;
• Reviewed policies in the Community Standards handbook as they relate to hazing. When the handbook is updated this summer for the 2017-18 year, it will include a change in these specific sanctions: Hazing 1st Violation: Increasing minimum community service hours from 20 hours to 40 hours; Increasing minimum fine from $100 to $200. Hazing 2nd violation: Disciplinary separation from the university, ranking from a suspension from the university one semester, to disciplinary expulsion from the university;
• Reiterated to student-athletes that Drury University has a strict written policy with regard to hazing.

Both administrators defended the inclusion of a first violation and second violation for hazing before there can be a suspension or expulsion, and not a zero-tolerance policy.

“We understand that there will be people out there who will think that we were too lenient, but there also will be people who maybe feel like we were too difficult on them,” Fisher said. “We understand there may be some criticism there, but we felt our sanctions were appropriate.”

Petrich said both Fisher and Julian encouraged him to explore transferring to another school.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Petrich said. “The way they spun that was they were trying to look out for my interests. To me, why should I have to leave for their mistake?”

Fisher said those comments were not intended as they may have been perceived.

“When Evan met with me, he expressed his feelings about being at the university, about being on the swim team, and felt uncomfortable in being part of that,” Fisher said. “In a brainstorming session, I talked to him about other things on campus that he felt comfortable being involved in. He looked at men’s soccer, and also ultimate frisbee.

“So we were looking at options. And if he wanted to swim, to maybe look at other options. Saying that Dr. Julian and I had asked him to transfer, I believe was taken out of context. It was more about looking for answers that would help him.”

Petrich said advice from Reynolds after the fact hasn’t made his life any easier.

“He told me all you can do now is try not to be bothered by it,” Petrich said. “I don’t know how not to, when it’s happened to you.”

Now, Petrich gets his competitive itch scratched by participating with Drury’s ultimate frisbee team, a non-NCAA sport sponsored by the school.

The Central High School graduate joined the Drury swimming team in the fall of 2015. Less than a month into his college career, he was thrust into an “Initiation Week” for new swimmers on the team.

Details included a late-night dodgeball game in Mabee Gym, after which freshman swimmers were made to line up against a wall, drop their pants (without underwear, which the freshmen were banned from wearing all week), and allow upperclassmen to throw dodgeballs at them.

The final night of the week, Petrich said the new swimmers were blindfolded and taken to a house occupied by a pair of team captains. They were told to take off all their clothes, then put on an adult diaper and their shoes.

According to Petrich, they were forced to consume beer and hard alcohol (gin and whiskey) in a specific time period and not allowed to leave the basement, as upperclassmen remained upstairs. Some of the swimmers began throwing up, and a corner of the basement was designated as the “pee corner,” where they were told to urinate. Petrich said some of the swimmers became “very drunk, almost to the state of ‘black-out drunk,’ ” and many became violent.

Other accusations included “pranking” members of the women’s swimming teams, being forced to watch pornographic movies, ranking the women’s swimmers in terms of who is “hottest,” and hosting a party after the school’s annual fundraising auction, where underage recruits were provided with alcohol.

Petrich said the alleged hazing incident has left him with lingering physical problems, including being diagnosed with conversion disorder – commonly caused by going through a stressful or traumatic event – and PTSD.

He remains in regular treatment at Burrell Behavioral Health in Springfield, and is still at student at Drury.

The teams are currently in the middle of their seasons, and will host Missouri State in men’s and women’s dual meets on Wednesday night at Breech Pool.

The Drury program isn’t alone in finding itself in the headlines for trouble away from the playing field or sports arena.

In November, Harvard University canceled the remainder of its men’s soccer season after the school discovered a document where players ranked freshman members of the women’s soccer team, based on “perceived sexual appeal and physical appearance.”

The men’s swimming and diving teams at Princeton University, and the men’s soccer team at Washington University in St. Louis were suspended in December.

At Princeton, comments labeled “vulgar and offensive, as well as misogynistic and racist in nature” from team members were discovered on the school’s online listserv.

At Washington University, officials suspended the men’s soccer team, after the discovery of an online document where the 2015 team made “degrading and sexually explicit comments” about women’s team members.