Thanks to a hazing incident involving a beer-chugging competition, the entire Cornell University men’s lacrosse team will no longer be competing in their fall 2013 season.
The New York university released a statement detailing the events that included performing “menial tasks” and participating in a keg race. The season was cancelled last week, The Associated Press reported, but the school only just released the specifics of the hazing.
“The freshmen were told to stand in a circle and were tied together with string that was passed through their belt loops,” the statement reads. “They consumed a large quantity of alcohol to the point at which multiple members vomited.”
The team was originally placed on suspension Sept. 13, pending the investigation. Once the probe was complete, the team’s entire fall 2013 competition schedule was cancelled.
“It’s a team-wide penalty for a team-wide incident,” John Carberry, a spokesman for Cornell, told Bloomberg News. “It involved coerced alcohol consumption by underage freshmen.”
The team will be forced to attend anti-hazing programs, and support will be provided for students negatively impacted by the hazing. The men will still be able to train during the fall, however, as Fox News reported.
In 2011, George Desdunes, a Cornell fraternity member, was killed in a hazing incident. He was duct taped and forced to drink large quantities of alcohol. Since the incident, the university has cracked down on hazing.
