A member of last year’s Dos Pueblos High baseball team claims he was the victim of hazing, and has filed a personal-injury lawsuit against two former teammates and the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
The lawsuit, filed April 26 in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, alleges an ongoing pattern of hazing among the baseball team members and bullying against the plaintiff for not wanting to take part in hazing rituals at the beginning of the baseball season.
A case management conference has been scheduled for Sept. 9.
John Becchio, assistant superintendent of human resources at the Santa Barbara Unified School District and former principal at Santa Barbara High, told Noozhawk that because there is a pending lawsuit, it restricts the district’s ability to comment on the case.
Asked if he thought there was a problem of hazing or bullying in athletic programs at the schools, Becchio said he couldn’t recall ever dealing with it during his time at SBHS.
“I was principal for seven years at Santa Barbara High, and I don’t even remember if I dealt with a hazing case,” he said. “The way I look at it is, one case is too many. I did not see it as a widespread problem when I was principal at the high school.
“Kids across town play sports with each other growing up and they treat each pretty good across schools, even though there’s rivalries. I thought that was a pretty interesting dynamic in our community,” he added.
“But when you do have an incident such as this one, it reminds you that one incident is too many, so you double up your efforts and say, OK, is there anything we can do or put in place to remedy or help prevent this from happening in the future. That’s kind of the zone we’re in.”
He said Dos Pueblos Principal Bill Woodard and Athletic Director Dan Feldhaus instituted measures to stop hazing and bullying.
“They made some moves to try and make sure across their athletic program this wasn’t going to happen again. That was one of the things that came out of this,” Becchio said.
“As with any student safety issue, as soon as I am made aware, I take immediate action to ensure that our students are safe,” Woodard told Noozhawk. “As a principal, I am responsible for analyzing and investigating all incidents that put either students or staff at risk, and then take necessary steps.”
Becchio also noted there is a “Stopit” app on every students’ iPad that, when activated, anonymously reports incidents of bullying and hazing.
The app has been in operation for two years, he said.
“All students have an iPad the district has issued,” Becchio said. “The app on there is where they can anonymously report any kind of incidents on unsafe situations, hazing or bullying or anything like that.”
In the court complaint, the plaintiff said he told his coach he felt he was being bullied by two teammates. The student athletes were seniors on a Dos Pueblos team that went 25-4, won the Channel League title and advanced to the CIF-SS Division 1 quarterfinals.
While the coach advised the plaintiff he would resolve the situation, “the bullying became more pervasive after the plaintiff reported the bullying conduct to his coach,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit says the plaintiff has suffered emotional distress, including embarrassment, anxiety, and humiliation from an incident that occurred while the team was staying in a hotel during a spring break tournament in March 2018.
Dos Pueblos was playing in the Cougar Classic in Rancho Cucamonga and staying at a hotel in nearby Ontario.
At the hotel, the two defendants conspired with each other and other team members to produce what is described in the complaint as “a potentially harmful foreign organic substance from their own bodies,” put it on a donut and made the plaintiff eat it, the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiff ate at least part of the donut unaware it had been tainted, the complaint says.
“The outrageous conduct of the defendants and others was so extreme as to exceed all bounds of that tolerated in a civilized community and was a substantial factor in causing plaintiff severe emotional distress,” according to the complaint.
The complaint cited other alleged incidents of hazing among baseball team members and reported a lack of supervision from coaches during the team’s hotel stay.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages.
There were no criminal charges filed by the Santa Barbara County or San Bernardino County district attorney offices.
The school district and defendants had not filed responses to the lawsuit in court as of Wednesday.
— Noozhawk Sports Editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.