Internet photos implicate team

Volleyball players' initiation may have involved alcohol

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 10, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Local News

More stories »

University of Colorado athletic officials launched an investigation Thursday after pictures turned up on the Internet that appeared to show women's volleyball players in an initiation rite - including images that depicted the use of alcohol.

The pictures, which were e-mailed to athletic and university officials, included shots of several first-year players dressed in goofy animal costumes as well as several images that suggested that drinking was involved.

Volleyball coach Pi'i Aiu summoned his players to a meeting Thursday evening, where he was told by the students involved that they were not the victims of hazing and were not drinking.

"They assured me there was no drinking involved," Aiu said. "I wasn't there, but I believe them."

He plans to further discuss the episode today with university administrators to determine what other action, if any, should be taken.

The images were troubling for Aiu because they raised the specter of hazing - forcing students to perform stunts or drink heavily - and because several depicted scenes that may have involved underage drinking. One shot, for example, showed a freshman player dressed as a squirrel doing a handstand over a keg of beer. Her feet are supported by two young men, but it is difficult to tell from the picture whether she is drinking from the keg because her face is obscured by her arm.

A caption that was posted under the photograph read, "A Classic Shot: The Squirrel gettin in her first keg stand."

Aiu said the player in the picture told him that the handstand was a prank and that she did not drink beer from the keg.

"She's a pretty good kid," Aiu said. "When she tells me this, I tend to believe her because of the kind of kid she is."

The pictures were taken last fall before the 2005 volleyball season, and they were posted on an Internet site by a team member. However, it wasn't until Thursday that someone discovered them on a Web page and e-mailed them to Aiu and other CU administrators, including Athletic Director Mike Bohn and President Hank Brown.

Underage and binge drinking on campus is an ongoing concern for administrators at colleges across the country, and CU is no exception.

University officials had been embarrassed when CU was named the nation's No. 1 "party school" in 2003 by Princeton Review - and relieved last year when, for the first time in eight years, the Boulder campus failed to make it onto the list.

The university has also been in the news for other alcohol-fueled problems, including the fall 2004 death of a freshman during a fraternity pledge ritual. And just last week, the national Sigma Nu fraternity suspended 27 of the 29 members of its Boulder chapter for an incident of alleged hazing.

Alcohol education is an ongoing effort at CU.

When Aiu first saw the pictures, he was concerned that some of his underage players may have been drinking.

In addition to the picture with the keg, for example, other pictures posted on the Internet showed players engaged in a drinking game called "flip cup." However, it is impossible to tell what is in the red plastic cups in the pictures.

Regardless, the potential inference led Aiu to summon the players once classes ended Thursday.

"My concern obviously is for the players' safety," Aiu said. "The sad thing is, I'm very proud of this team, and that one incident - if this is the case - is going to taint us."

Bohn said that he would reserve judgment until he knew more about the situation.

"There would be some corrective action in the event that it's called for, but at this point I think it would be inappropriate to comment about that," Bohn said.

Thursday morning, the Web site included 42 pictures. Shortly after the Rocky Mountain News placed calls to various CU officials about the pictures, 19 of them were removed from the Web site, including all of those that may have depicted drinking or the party where the players were dressed up.

Like underage drinking, hazing is also a sensitive subject on campuses across the country.

CU policies define hazing as "any action or situation that recklessly or intentionally endangers the health, safety, or welfare of an individual for the purpose of initiation, participation, admission into, or affiliation with any organization at the university."

Aiu said he was satisfied that none of the students was asked to do anything against her will.

He said the freshmen dressed up in the goofy costumes, then walked on the Hill in Boulder with older players passing out fliers and posters to promote the volleyball season.

Aiu said he talked to his team Thursday night about the importance of perceptions - and the way pictures like those that turned up on the Internet could taint the team's image, even if none of the players was doing anything wrong.

He pointed out that the team has a 100 percent graduation rate, has scored 1,000 on the Academic Performance Rating conducted by the NCAA, and is composed of players whose average GPA is 3.0.

"We're doing good things," he said. "We're not a problem program."

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News