Wrestlers’ Families Plan to Hire Therapist

Parents of Westlake High School wrestlers are planning to hire a therapist to help soothe any strain their sons have suffered during ongoing investigations into the team’s hazing rituals.

Although no charges have been filed, all 27 team members have been publicly tarred for two weeks as bullies, harassers and perverts, the parents say. They add that their 20 sons neither participated in, nor knew about, the hazing--which involved pinning students down and probing their buttocks with a mop handle dubbed “Pedro.”

Banding together into a group they call Westlake Wrestlers’ Parents, about 35 mothers and fathers say they will hire a psychologist to meet with their sons as a group and individually to ease the trauma of returning to campus under a cloud of rumors next week.

“They’re all very concerned about going back to school,” said the parents’ spokesman, who declined to be identified because he was speaking for the whole group. “We’re resigned to get some professional help and have a psychologist meet with our children and deal with whatever those traumas will be.”

That professional is expected to be a marriage, family and child counselor who is an acquaintance of one of the parents. In pursuit of objectivity, a counselor who lives outside the Conejo Valley has been tapped. Parents hope she will be available to speak to wrestlers who participated in the hazing incidents as well as those who did not but feel stigmatized nonetheless, a second parent explained.

The source of the parents’ concerns, voiced at an informal meeting Monday night, is the shocking revelation of widespread hazing among Westlake High wrestlers, which in mid-December led school officials to cancel the remainder of this year’s season.

A school investigation into the matter spurred a police investigation, which had not yielded any arrests by late Tuesday. Ventura County sheriff’s officials say that as many as six hazing incidents took place at the school between Sept. 8 and Dec. 8.

If charged, wrestlers involved in the harassment and intimidation could face, at most, misdemeanor assault and battery charges, according to Sgt. Rod Mendoza of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“No arrests are pending at this time because we still have interviews to do,” he said Tuesday. Anyone arrested would likely be issued a citation and returned to their parents’ care pending a court date.

School officials, who are waiting for the conclusion of the police investigation, may also punish the guilty students, possibly with suspensions or expulsions.

The confirmed hazing victims include a fellow wrestler and a boy and a girl who were not involved with the team. Although she was pinned down and taunted, the girl was not prodded with the mop handle because a wrestler intervened on her behalf, police say. There were no injuries and all victims were fully clothed during the incidents.

The dry mop--used to clean the team’s wrestling mat--had become an unofficial team mascot, students have said.

Perhaps half a dozen students inflicted the prodding, while others watched, police said. All 27 wrestlers knew about the hazing ritual but did nothing to stop it, police contend, citing interviews school officials conducted with each member of the group.

That last contention--plus the cancellation of the season for all wrestlers, regardless of their involvement or lack of it--has painted every wrestler with the same brush, the parents say.

Even before winter break began, the wrestlers were the object of homophobic taunts from their peers. In the lunch line, some endured snickering from students who said they didn’t want to stand in front of a wrestler.

Parents say they can’t help but wonder what effect such comments have on the developing psyches of youngsters between 14 and 18.

Enter the therapist, who is expected to meet once with the boys as a group, with all interested parents chipping in to pay her fee. From there, each family will decide whether to pursue individual sessions.

“I think this is a case of giving them a vehicle to express feelings that they might not have been able to express before,” the second parent said Tuesday. “For the freshmen especially, they’re still finding their peer group, while the older boys have a pretty good idea of where they fit in. Remember, physically they might be mature, but they’re still just little boys.”

Sheriff’s spokesman Mendoza declined to comment in depth on the parents’ plan to hire a therapist. “That’s their decision,” he said. “It relates to their children.”

To clear the boys who had nothing to do with the hazing, the parent group is still calling for the reinstatement of the team, minus the wrongdoers.

Parents are also continuing their steady barrage of criticism against school officials--asking why their children were without supervision when the hazing incidents occurred.

According to police, the hazings took place during a 50-minute lull between the end of the school day and 3 p.m., when the coach would arrive for practice.