The cheerleading team at Reitz Memorial High School, a Catholic school in Evansville, Indiana, is dealing with a bizarre hazing scandal.
This summer, the 30-member cheer team from Reitz Memorial attended a four-day, “elite” level cheer camp held by the Universal Cheerleaders Association at the University of Tennessee. The same cheer camp the cheerleaders of Reitz Memorial have been attending for more than a decade.
Now, an anonymous letter written by the mother of one of the cheerleaders (see the letter below) is making the rounds. It was sent to media outlets and dropped in random mailboxes around Evansville. The letter alleges that some horrific hazing took place at this cheer camp.
According to the letter, all the junior cheerleaders pooped in a single toilet and then locked the sophomore cheerleaders inside with the toilet, warning them there’d be trouble if they flushed. They then forced them to strip and give lap dances to stripped-down junior cheerleaders who treated it as a contest and mocked the sophomore cheerleaders bodies, calling them fat and ugly.
This all lasted three hours, during which many of the sophomore girls were crying and one even peed herself in fear.
The juniors told the sophomores that they would lose their place on the squad if they didn’t participate in the hazing, told anyone about it, or if they didn’t do the same thing to the sophomores next year.
After the hazing was reported to the school an investigation was launched during which the juniors admitted to the hazing, but said that they were forced to do it by coaches Jill Mitchell and Kim Schmidt who told them that it was a 15-year tradition and they’d be kicked off the team if they didn’t do the hazing that hey had also suffered when they were sophomores.
The coaches said it was a bonding experience and it’d bring them closer together.
Now the sophomores are being harassed by the juniors and seniors at school and online.
Mitchell and Schmidt have denied all the claims against them but have resigned anyway. 14 News spoke to someone who claims to have been part of the hazings and confirms the account in the letter.
The school refuses to comment on the incident, but has said that some students have been disciplined and three coaches have been asked to resign.