Autumn sports season

The Autumn sports season is kicking off at colleges and universities around the nation.  High hopes and excitement are the norm.  Everyone is excited.  Unfortunately here in Albuquerque, this week at least, it's the UNM women's soccer program that has people talking.  It should be, that the hopes of the Lobo football program, or the fifthanked men's soccer team dominate conversation.  Instead, an alleged initiation/hazing incident is the news.  I have said for a long time, if sports is on the front page of the "A" section of the local newspaper or leading off the local newscasts, odds are it is not good.  While the investigation is ongoing, and UNM has cancelled the women's soccer team's first game, we don't know exactly what happened;  but we can probably assume something did.  No one has yet claimed that there was not excessive drinking, allegedly forced, by 18-year-old girls.  I do believe that "initiation" traditions can be good.  They can build a bond and a sense of being.  But the days of hazing in sports has long passed us by.  I hear all the stories, and I have some of my own, about what has happened in the past.  That's great.  But our society has evolved and it's not OK anymore.  It's not OK to hide behind the "mob mentality" to humiliate and allegedly, in this case, hurt people.  I'm all about team, bonding and tradition; I can't get behind humiliation, harm and alleged assault.  We have to be better than that. Initiation crossing the line into hazing is antiquated.  Maybe that makes me an old man, but we have to evolve.