KY case is latest high school football sodomy, hazing investigation nationwide

Editor’s note: This story contains details some readers will find disturbing.

A Kentucky State Police investigation into potential hazing-related sodomy on the McCreary County Central High School football team is the latest similar incident nationwide in recent years.

Police seized brooms as part of the investigation into allegations related to an August football camp in Casey County.

It’s not yet clear what the outcome will be in McCreary County, but in other states nationwide, such investigations have led to firings, resignations, lawsuits and, in some cases, criminal charges.

Here’s a recap of some of the other, similar investigations and incidents:

NBC News reported Sept. 17 that powerhouse football program Ursuline High School, in Youngstown, Ohio, canceled the rest of its season after a player’s mother filed a federal lawsuit claiming her son and others were physically and sexually abused by teammates during a nine-day football camp this past summer, and coaches did nothing to stop the hazing.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, alleged that the school, its officials, and coaches failed to protect students from a long-standing culture of hazing in the football program, according to a news release from Chandra Law Firm, which is representing the family that sued.

The coaches have been suspended.

In California, the Sacramento Bee reported Sept. 9 that varsity football players at Elk Grove High School were suspended from the team after one underclassman student reportedly “had his pants pulled down and had simulated sexual acts performed on him” in the locker room.

Last year, an investigation determined that football players at Mead High School, outside Spokane, Wash., sexually assaulted two of their teammates with a massage gun. The district’s report was posted on KXLY. com. Families filed lawsuits, and media reports said the incident led to a resignation and a firing.

In 2024, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland paid nearly $10 million to football players who were sexually assaulted in a high school hazing case at Damascus High School in 2018.

In 2023, the Charlotte Observer reported that a lawsuit filed on behalf of two students at Daniel Boone High School in Gray, Tenn., detailed graphic sexual abuse against two younger football players. The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee, accused older players of hazing two victims during the 2022-2023 school year.

One of the older players was charged with two counts of assault-offensive touching and three counts of aggravated assault, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a news release.

In 2022, Dauphin County, Penn., officials filed juvenile allegations against 10 students after a sodomy hazing investigation at Middletown High School.

That same year, NBC New York reported that six of seven players charged in a hazing and sexual assault case at Wall Township High School in New Jersey had taken plea deals. The incidents happened between September and October 2021 inside a locker room.

Several students and coaches were suspended, and games were canceled as a result of the investigation.

In 2017, in Texas, nine students were accused of sexually assaulting 10 members of the La Vernia High School football team. The victims said their teammates sodomized them with items including broomsticks. Parents of the victims filed a federal lawsuit.

Two of the 18-year-old players were charged with sexually assaulting their 16-year-old teammate with the threaded end of a carbon dioxide tank while the victim was held face down by other players.

A 2016 Outside the Lines investigation found more than 40 sodomy-related hazing incidents in school athletic programs between 2011 and 2016.

That same year, three football players in Chester County, Penn., were accused of sodomizing a younger teammate with a broomstick.

And in 2015, a 15-year-old Virginia high school football player was arrested and charged with a felony count of attempted sodomy with an inanimate object and assault by mob, a misdemeanor.