CU ends probe of volleyball players at party

Coach says photos on Internet do not prove hazing, beer

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 11, 2006 at midnight

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University of Colorado athletic officials Friday closed the book on their investigation of a women's volleyball party that saw players dress up as goofy animals and appear in photographs that suggested drinking was going on.

Volleyball coach Pi'i Aiu said he concluded that the incident last fall did not involve hazing and that while he believed his players when they told him they weren't drinking, it was impossible to determine whether alcohol was involved.

"I think for me it's settled," said Aiu. "This does not seem to be the issue it was alleged to be."

Aiu and other athletic officials had moved swiftly Thursday after photographs of the volleyball players were discovered on the Internet by an Atlanta man who has sought on a number of occasions to stop incidents of hazing.

He e-mailed copies of several of the photographs to Boulder campus officials and Aiu summoned team members to a meeting Thursday evening.

Several freshmen players who dressed up in animal outfits and passed out fliers and posters on The Hill in Boulder, near the CU campus, told Aiu they did so willingly. They also denied that they drank alcohol, even though two photographs appeared to depict a drinking game and another showed a player doing a handstand over a keg of beer.

A Web site called badjocks.com on Friday posted an enhanced version of the keg picture, which appeared to show a hose on the top of the keg extending up toward the mouth of the player in question - a freshman. It is impossible to tell if the player has the spout in her mouth, however, because her face is partially obscured by her arm.

The CU Athletic Department released a statement Friday afternoon that said Aiu and Associate Athletic Director Karen Morrison concluded that neither hazing nor alcohol was involved in the incident.

Of the keg photo, Aiu and Morrison "concluded that a picture that ran in two local newspapers from the gathering was a 'staged' photo from another location," according to the statement.

"The student-athlete featured in the photo said she was not drinking from the keg," the statement said. "Other photos on the Web site from the party, held last August, depicted freshmen members of the team drinking from generic red cups, but they did not contain alcohol.

The function was at the home of a senior member of the volleyball team, whose mother was in attendance and confirmed that no underage drinking of any kind took place."

The findings were reported to CU's Office of Judicial Affairs and to the offices of the Boulder campus chancellor and the vice chancellor for student affairs.

The photographs had been posted by a member of the volleyball team. They were taken off the Web Thursday afternoon shortly after the Rocky Mountain News placed calls to several CU officials to ask about them.

Dale Terry, of Atlanta, who discovered the photographs on the Web, said in an e-mail to the News on Friday that he was hazed as a fraternity pledge and has been "anti-hazing every since."

He said he occasionally looks at Web sites where college students post pictures and searches for shots that could include hazing or other initiation rituals. When he finds them, he sometimes forwards them to the college in question, he said.

"The Colorado pictures had obvious clues as to the school," he wrote.

Terry said he would be surprised if alcohol wasn't involved in the CU volleyball initiation.

But Aiu said he can't prove one way or another whether alcohol was consumed months ago by one of his players. He said he is concerned, however, about the potential for it - and that he plans to continue stressing that point to his players.

"It's something that on a college campus you have to discuss a lot and make sure kids are being smart and doing the right things," Aiu said. "I think the main thing that our players need to understand is they get some privileges that the normal student body does not have, and as a result they have some responsibilities that the normal student body does not have."

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