Updates: In the wake of being criminally charged, the seven suspects have been formally suspended from school. An anti-bullying rally and candlelight vigil was held over the weekend. And this might explain the deafening silence of varsity football coach George Najjar,
whose only public statement has been "There will be a time and place when I have something to say, but now is not the time -- I need to sit down with the administration":
Quote:
NJ.com: ...(F)ormer athletes who played for Najjar while he was the head coach at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn (New York City) in the 1980s recounted initiation rituals during preseason camp that included Animal House-style paddling of underclassmen by upperclassmen...
Several of Najjar’s former Lincoln players described the paddling as a relatively harmless football tradition that they did not believe Najjar knew about...(A) former Lincoln player...said (t)he initiations occurred “since the dawn of time, from what I understood...I got my paddle, I gave my paddle and that was it. We were family...It was a tradition thing.”
...(A)nother Lincoln football player who graduated in 1987 said he was saved from a paddling by the coach...“They saved me for last for some reason...Coach Najjar came in there and...actually stopped it and didn’t let it go on, and I’ll never forget that. I was in tears because I was afraid...(H)e took us all on the field to run (as discipline) because of what was going on...”
On Wednesday, a man who...claimed to be a former Lincoln football player coached by Najjar in 1985 and 1986 called (a sports talk radio show): “It was common knowledge amongst the team...(T)he stuff that went on in that camp was degrading and scary. Even though I was a big...tough Brooklyn kid, you’d have five, six guys, teaming up on one guy, holding him down. The fact that (Najjar) wouldn’t know could be almost impossible to me. He was never present...(But) they overhear what goes on...”
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