Last week, four wrestlers from Norman North High School in Norman, Okla., were arrested and charged with rape by instrumentation after police said they engaged in ''multiple acts of sexual assault'' Jan. 9 that involved force on a 16-year-old teammate and another who is 12. The students were on the team bus, which was returning from an out-of-town tournament. A few days later, a 17-year-old wrestler from Southmoore High School in nearby Moore, Okla. was similarly charged in a reportedly similar incident involving two junior high school wrestlers which he described as "butt-dragging", according to The Oklahoman newspaper .
Rape by instrumentation is a felony charge which could result in a prison sentence. All of the accused athletes have been suspended from school.
Some news reports have suggested these acts might be hazing rituals.
Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said the incidents sounded more like bullying or hazing than a wrestling issue.
''Clearly, with these allegations, we have more work to do today in regard to education and making sure nothing like this happens again,'' Moyer told the Associated Press .
Lee Roy Smith, executive director of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame located in Stillwater, Okla., said, ''You have never heard much about wrestlers being bullies or hazing that much because of how much the sport has taught them to be disciplined with their physicality,'' he said. ''It builds a self-reliance, rock-solid character values. These kinds of acts are really out of character -- they will not be tolerated at any level.''
Smith, an NCAA wrestling champ at Oklahoma State who was also a two-time Oklahoma state champ from Del City High School in suburban Oklahoma City, told the AP that wrestling teaches physical discipline and builds character for athletes from nearly any background.
''Wrestling is a sport for any boy of any size and any weight,'' said Smith. ''You learn self-confidence and self-defense skills."
The parents of the 12-year-old victim of the Norman North incident have no doubt as to how to classify what happened on that school bus in January.
"This is rape. It's not hazing. It's not horseplay. It's completely disgusting," the boy's father told KWTV-TV, the CBS affiliate in Oklahoma City, after he and his wife watched surveillance video from the bus.
"The boy's mother said what happened to her son that day went beyond hazing," according to KWTV's report. "After watching the video on Friday, she has no doubt her son was raped."
Are incidents such as those which allegedly happened in Oklahoma rare in wrestling?
A news story from KFOR-TV, the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, included interviews with wrestler parents, a coach, and an area psychologist who all said they either were unaware of such incidents, or thought they were rare.
"I've been involved with this sport since I was five, and I'm in my mid-40s now, and I've never heard of anything like this in the sport," Karl Belford, an assistant coach for the Oklahoma Wrestling Academy, told KFOR.
However, the same news report claimed that "a quick Google search found dozens of articles relating to sexual assault and hazing in the sport of wrestling, and ESPN citing incidents dating back 24 years ago."
In recent years, there have been incidents involving high school and college wrestlers which have garnered national media coverage.
In 2011, a handful of wrestlers from Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School surrounded a deaf teammate in the shower room and touched him with their genitals. The leader of the incident -- a Wisconsin high school state champ who had been offered a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison -- spent ten days in jail on disorderly conduct charges, and his scholarship to wrestle for the Badgers was withdrawn. The Wisconsin Rapids school district's insurance company later paid out what was described as "a six-figure settlement" to the victim and his family.
In the fall of 2013, some wrestlers at York College -- an NCAA Division III program in Pennsylvania -- engaged in physically abusive rituals involving teammates at off-campus locations. The school suspended the program for one week to conduct an internal investigation. York administrators uncovered evidence of hazing, and disciplined a number of student-athletes, some with suspensions, others with expulsion from the school. In addition, the York wrestling program was put on probation for one year, with wrestlers performing community service.
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