Leechburg Basketball Team Headed To WPIAL Playoffs, Despite Hazing Scandal
LEECHBURG (KDKA) -- The Leechburg Blue Devils basketball team will be playing in the WPIAL playoffs next week against Monssen at a neutral site.
Their season, for a time, was in jeopardy because of a police investigation into team hazing allegations.
A Leechburg School Board meeting Tuesday night was moved to the high school auditorium because of the overflow crowd. On the agenda was a motion to terminate the remainder of the Blue Devils season because of hazing charges that recently surfaced.
Everyone who signed up to speak said the team should not be punished because of the alleged wrong doing by a few players and it would be premature to end the team's season early.
It turned out; the motion to terminate was dead on arrival.
No one on the board introduced the measure, so there was no vote, much to the satisfaction of the audience. The board did vote to hire an independent investigator to look into the charges.
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John Burtick, the team captain of the Blue Devils, said after the meeting, "I'm glad it's all over; I'm glad we're in the playoffs."
Amy Nulph, whose son, Cory, plays on the team, said she was satisfied with the board's decision not to end the season early because "the boys worked hard."
An attorney representing two alleged hazing victims was in the audience at the Board meeting.
Timothy Schweers said he was not surprised by what the school board did and didn't do.
As for two players who were allegedly hazed, Schweers said, "They are not well. I'm not going to describe in detail what the means, but I think you can understand that."
They are in school.
Hours before the meeting, Leechburg Police Chief Michael Diebold said in a statement to KDKA-TV News that he was disturbed and shocked by the hazing tradition. The information gathered during interviews, he said, has added validity to the allegations. He called it a pattern of behavior with different levels of severity over approximately 10 years.
