Penn State coach, players named in hazing lawsuit
A current Cal football player claims in a lawsuit that Penn State players hazed him and other younger teammates by imitating sexual acts in the shower and invoking Jerry Sandusky’s name during the one year he spent at the school.
Isaiah Humphries filed the lawsuit Monday in Pennsylvania federal court against the university, head coach James Franklin and one former teammate. He left Penn State after one year and transferred to Cal, where he sat out the 2019 season under NCAA transfer rules.
University police conducted an investigation and turned over their results to the local district attorney, who declined to prosecute, Penn State said in a statement. The university said it conducted extensive interviews but found nothing to substantiate claims against Franklin or to indicate that anyone had been hazed.
The allegations include that older players said to younger ones, “I am going to Sandusky you.”
Sandusky was the team’s retired longtime defensive coordinator when he was convicted in 2012 of sexual abuse of 10 boys, including physical attacks on university property. He is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence.
Humphries’ lawyer, Steven Marino, said it took courage
for his client to come forward.
“And he wants to be vindicated — he didn’t leave Penn State because he wanted to,” Marino said late Tuesday. “He left Penn State because he was harassed, bullied, humiliated.”
The lawsuit claims some of the older players would physically restrain younger players, taunt them and engage in mock sex acts. It further claims that starting in January 2018, several players “collectively orchestrated, participated in, directed and or facilitated a campaign to harass and haze lower classmen members of the Penn State football team,” including Humphries.
Penn State’s statement issued Tuesday said its Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response and the Office of Student Conduct investigated, and that Penn State police turned over results of its own investigation to Centre County
District Attorney Bernie F. Cantorna.
The lawsuit claims Humphries and his father both reported harassment and hazing in the football team locker room, but “no substantive action was taken” in response by Franklin.
Humphries, 20, alleges he was retaliated against for making the reports, including scorn from coaches, “irrational and inappropriate censure” by the team’s academic adviser and denial of medical accommodations to treat anxiety and narcolepsy. WASHNGTON STATE HIRES HAWAII’S ROLOVICH >> The president of Washington State University tweeted that Hawaii’s Nick Rolovich will take over as the Cougars’ head football coach, replacing Mike Leach. The 40-yearold Rolovich is 28-27 in four seasons in Hawaii, including three bowl appearances.
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