STrib: Proctor HS football season canceled amid 'serious misconduct' investigation

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BleedGopher

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per STrib:

The remainder of Proctor High School's football season is canceled, players learned Wednesday, as a police investigation into alleged student misconduct continues.

The district suspended football activities last week following reported allegations that have not been made public.

In the announcement Wednesday, Superintendent John Engelking said the cancellation allows for "due diligence" for the investigation into alleged "serious misconduct."

"Please know that this decision was not made hastily, and it was made with consultation with the Proctor Police Department, the Minnesota State High School League, the Proctor Public Schools Crisis Team, and legal counsel," he said.

"We will take action against substantiated misconduct and we will address any and all problems in the football program; we are absolutely confident that when the program resumes next season, we will be RailStrong by representing our families, school, and community in a positive way both on and off the field and by doing the right thing at all times."

Meanwhile, the coach of the team, Derek Parendo, "is currently not conducting any coaching duties," Engelking said in an earlier interview.

Citing privacy laws, Engelking would not disclose whether any students have been disciplined. Proctor Police Chief Kent Gaidis said the investigation isn't expected to be concluded this week.

Todd Becker, parent to a football player, said team members would also not be permitted to participate in next week's homecoming festivities.

While it's understandable during the investigation, a wholesale cancellation "hurts the innocent kids," he said. "Ninety-nine percent of them had nothing to do with it."

Social media and rampant rumors are worsening an already shocking situation, Becker said, with many critics painting the entire team with a single broad brush before facts have been laid out.

"It's to the point where [my son] isn't wearing his Proctor football shirt and hat in town," Becker said.

www.startribune.com

Proctor football season canceled amid 'serious misconduct' investigation

Details of the investigation have not been released.
www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Go Gophers!!
 



Shutdown the whole team typically isn't some rando off field incident ... usually that something the team was to some scale or another doing as a team...

We'll see.
 

Hopefully the truth will come out. To penalized the who team perhaps base on one or two guys doesn't make sense. Sounds like a team deal where perhaps some players regret participating. Having said that, "I know nothing, and see nothing."
 


My guess would be some kind of hazing incident that got way out of hand. Could be that only a few were directly involved, but many more did nothing to stop it from happening.
 

GophersInIowa said:
My guess would be some kind of hazing incident that got way out of hand. Could be that only a few were directly involved, but many more did nothing to stop it from happening.
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Ah my college frat dayz
 





I have to admit, reading the article leaves one wanting to know what the hell happened.
 


Is this an Out State thing? Proctor, Elk River wasn’t Browerville as well..
 

#2Gopher said:
Hopefully the truth will come out. To penalized the who team perhaps base on one or two guys doesn't make sense. Sounds like a team deal where perhaps some players regret participating. Having said that, "I know nothing, and see nothing."
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Hopefully for the victims sake it stays private. No need for this to be public to all. The kids on the team know I’m sure and that’s enough.
 





oak_street1981 said:
Please, the details, what happened......

I worked in a big distribution center in Northfield MN where group of Union workers shrink wrapped a guy that some did not care for on a post moored to a pallet and parked him in an off dock trailer. The poor guy sat in there for almost half an hour before he was liberated. MGMT may have known

Today all in the management side would be fired, and the Union would have had a problem defending the jobs of those that abused the guy shrinkwrapped.

It is interesting to see how much our standards have changed in the last 30 years.
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I messed up on this one and jumped to conclusions based on misinterpreting this post.
 
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All I can add is that this is a full-on criminal investigation, not simply a case of "boys will be boys." And based on preliminary (and admittedly, very little) information, I'd be surprised if there weren't significant charges eventually brought. Just a really bad situation.
 

fmlizard said:
One of my favorite books is "The Better Angels of Our Nature" and across 850 pages it makes an incredible case about how these are in fact not the scariest, most depraved, most dangerous times to live in - as the majority of Americans believe.

No humans on Earth have ever been safer or more well protected than those living in the developed world today. Punishments we used to stand in the public square and cheer for are considered beyond the pale now. A human today is about 1/1000 as likely to die of violence as their counterpart a couple centuries ago. Our standards have radically changed, and that's good. But it can go overboard.

I have no idea what happened at Proctor but if a few guys on varsity taped some kid to a goalpost in a classic prank and they canceled the entire program for the entire season, across all grade levels...wow.

Support discipline to the fullest reasonable extent for those involved. I'm sure 99% of the kids found out through some email and were not there. Same with the coach who is now probably professionally and socially ruined because he couldn't be there 24/7 watching 100+ high school kids. Peak 2021.
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1. It's quite a bit more serious than a taping to a goalpost.
2. More than 1% of kids were involved.

You are making silly assumptions off of no actual knowledge. I'm not sure why.
 

I talked to a relative who lives in Proctor. Sounds like everyone in that community knows what happened. Was told it’s pretty much exactly what some have alluded to here. Kid held down by a few team members, plunger handle involved, many team members watched while taking Snapchat videos.
 

Gopherfan84 said:
Hopefully for the victims sake it stays private. No need for this to be public to all. The kids on the team know I’m sure and that’s enough.
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Sadly ... at least at the school / community I'm sure the stories are already out.

News outlets will be careful but locals not so much.
 


I still get amazed how they could do whatever they did, and people just sat/stood there thinking this is OK. Same thing with the Gopher players "standing in line." In both cases to make it worse. Lets take out our phones and take pictures/videos. Just stupid and disgusting.
 

bizzle22 said:
I talked to a relative who lives in Proctor. Sounds like everyone in that community knows what happened. Was told it’s pretty much exactly what some have alluded to here. Kid held down by a few team members, plunger handle involved, many team members watched while taking Snapchat videos.
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It is sad that hazing like this was ever accepted as some weird sort of team building/bonding thing in the past. The fact that it still happens now is just pathetic.

Have never understood how assaulting/violating a teammate is supposed to bring everyone closer together. Such a backward way of thinking.
 


I had a friend that belonged to a large football program down in AZ that was nationally recognized. He said this type of hazing was common place and expected and was passed down year after year. Any freshman that couldn't make JV or Varsity was considered open game. Point is, my guess is this isn't the first time it has happened in Proctor, just the first time it has gone public. My guess is incidents like this happen more than people want to admit.
 


gophernut1 said:
I had a friend that belonged to a large football program down in AZ that was nationally recognized. He said this type of hazing was common place and expected and was passed down year after year. Any freshman that couldn't make JV or Varsity was considered open game. Point is, my guess is this isn't the first time it has happened in Proctor, just the first time it has gone public. My guess is incidents like this happen more than people want to admit.
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Yep, most of this gets passed off as "tradition" or the "way its always been done", as if that somehow makes it ok or right. This is one area where social media can help expose things like this and bring it into the public view if the victims have the courage to stand up and say something about it.

Just pathetic that in 2021 there are still people out there that don't see this kind of behavior as wrong/disgusting.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
Have we made this about Trump yet?
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5M3oN.gif
 



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