Sohn: Want to blame media for Ooltewah? Bring it on

It is incomprehensible that Hamilton County Schools officials and members of the Board of Education would blame the media for the “culture of hazing” that a recent report found existed last year – and maybe several years prior – on the boys’ basketball team at Ooltewah High School.

But that’s exactly what folks involved told a board-hired investigator who was tasked with examining the school’s culture and the effectiveness of the school district’s bullying, hazing and sexual harassment policies in the aftermath of the pool-cue rape of a freshman player in December.

The rape, which occurred at the hands of three older players during a tournament trip to Gatlinburg, resulted in a 15-year-old boy needing hospitalization and emergency surgery. Three other boys also were raped that night – though they were physically uninjured.

Coaches and chaperones were upstairs in the Gatlinburg cabin when these assaults happened in the cabin basement. Initially, the incident was called “horseplay” by school officials and even a Gatlinburg police investigator. The Gatlinburg detective was called to action after the hospital, not the coaches, reported the injury. Never mind that the boy’s screams finally led the adults to find him in a pool of blood. Despite the boy’s obvious and serious injuries, the coaches had the team play four more games before public outrage resulted in the cancellation of the basketball season.