It's bad enough that the students/athletes/young adults took part in this, but that the head coach was aware and did nothing to stop it is just absurd.
but why on Earth would it make sense to issue a dictum saying you can't swim to all the new students coming in, never mind those who can be cleared?
As some have suggested in the comments, this could be an excuse to get rid of the program. Suspending the program for five years seems pretty darn draconian.
I must say I've never understood this. Why would it ever be the right thing to do to suspend a whole program itself? Suspend/expel/fire for any length of time everyone who participated, the athletes/the coaches/the department heads, if what they did is that heinous, without me knowing the explicit details — but why on Earth would it make sense to issue a dictum saying you can't swim to all the new students coming in, never mind those who can be cleared?
I agree that something more going on here than meets the eye. You'd think it would be sufficient to fire all the coaches, dismiss the captains, make an example out of the most egregious offenders who weren't in an official position of power by dismissing them as well, then put everybody else who continues with the program on "double secret probation." To cut both the men's and women's programs for 5 whole years seems way beyond necessary.
The hazing sounds pretty bad and merits a serious response. My question to the WKU athletic dept is whether they would take the same steps if this were the men's football or bball program. (Probably not, I'm guessing.)
