Poll: Is this the end of Sayreville football?

Once you’ve heard all the lurid details of what took place in the locker room at Sayreville War Memorial High School and what may happen to the coaching staff and athletes involved – one question remains.

Should the program continue beyond this year?

If not, how does this help those victims heal? After all, the health and well-being of the victims should be priority A – and not the games themselves, as some parents had recently proclaimed.

But I wonder myself. The overall goal should be seeing to it that those who were victimized get the proper care they need – and that there be no future victims of this type of “hazing!”

But the future of the program remains in doubt.

The proactive approach that Sayreville School Superintendent Richard Labbee thusfar had taken in shutting down the program for the remainder of the year cannot be in dispute.

This was not done as a punitive measure.

All the facts needed to be gathered to conduct a proper investigation by the Prosecutor’s office. It needed ( and still needs ) to be determined how widespread the problem of hazing, bullying, intimidation, and yes, possibly even sexual assault is.

However in an article on MyCentral Jersey.com, Labbee wonders if the program can continue beyond this year:

"The question of whether we are going to have a football program going forward is a critical one I am now going to be addressing," Labbe said on Sunday night.

"I'm hoping to get clearance at some point this week so that we can start interviewing the coaches. I'm going to make this decision based upon sound rationale, which includes very concrete data and information."

Labbe said he would not make any decision regarding the football program's long-term future "rashly or abruptly."

Here’s what I wonder. If the football program is discontinued, have we solved the problem? Is this localized to just Sayreville (which I’m sure it’s not) – or is it an issue that many other school districts around the state and country share.

Is it merely confined to being a “football issue” – or are there other sports, or for that matter, organizations that allow for some type of initiation rite to take place?

Firing the coaching staff is a necessary first step. I think everyone is in agreement with that. Regardless of whether or not they knew what was going on, they were still the one’s in whose care those victims were placed.

Going forward though, shutting down the entire program permanently doesn’t solve anything. Putting safeguards in place so that this won’t happen again would be the prudent move.

And not by politicians. This could best be determined by canvassing coaches around the state and country to find out how they’ve dealt with hazing at their institutions – and how to prevent it in the future.

It may take longer than the rest of the football season to come to any kind of conclusion – but if that’s the case – so be it!

Football should be allowed to continue, but not until a sound, reasonable plan to prevent more “hazings” like the one in Sayreville is determined.