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A BC swimmer feels caught in hazing-suspension crossfire and robbed of her final season
By Bob Hohler Boston Globe Staff, February 6, 2024
Katrina Sommer, a captain of UCLA’s 2022-23 swimming and diving team, transferred to BC as a fifth-year graduate student but did not get to compete.
Katrina Sommer doesn’t drink alcohol, hates hazing, and, as a student-athlete, prizes positive team chemistry.
Sommer, a captain of UCLA’s 2022-23 swimming and diving team, transferred to Boston College last summer as a fifth-year graduate student, believing after speaking with BC’s coaches that she would fit perfectly in the program. She envisioned setting a couple of BC swimming records and pushing herself to qualify, against steep odds, for the US Olympic trials that will determine who joins Team USA at the 2024 Paris Games.
But neither she nor her 66 teammates got a chance to compete: BC suspended the program over a hazing case that, Sommer contends, school leaders handled unfairly for the vast majority of the team.
Sommer, who was not a victim of any hazing, is the first team member to speak publicly about the saga.
“I definitely understand why the school had to address the hazing allegations,” Sommer said from her home in Southern California. “I just think that everything after that was kind of a mess.”
The process lacked transparency, she said, and ultimately supported neither the victims nor dozens of teammates who were not complicit in hazing, particularly the seniors who lost their final chance to compete after coping with the pandemic.
“It’s really heartbreaking,” Sommer said.
She questioned, too, why BC shut down the program for the entire 2023-24 season, while other universities have imposed less severe punishment for hazing.
BC said in a statement, “The individual and team sanctions that Boston College issued to the swimming and diving program were made after an extensive investigation that included interviews with student-athletes, coaches, and staff, and conduct hearings through the Office of the Dean of Students. The university took a strong and appropriate stand against hazing and a team culture of misconduct, and firmly stands by its decision.”
The controversy began when BC indefinitely suspended the program in September and launched a lengthy investigation into allegations that freshmen had been instructed to binge-drink and consume their own vomit at a Labor Day weekend party. Seven juniors who lived in an off-campus residence known as the “Swim House” were initially suspended, although the hazing occurred elsewhere and involved only sophomores and freshmen.
In October, with no end to the suspension in sight, 37 swimmers and divers — more than half the team — sought an emergency injunction in Middlesex Superior Court to lift the ban. Sommer, 22, who is pursuing a master’s from BC in cybersecurity policy and governance and is applying to law schools, did not join the lawsuit.
In late October, Judge Diane Freniere denied the request.
“While it is regrettable that certain members of the team who did not participate in or know of the hazing incident are suffering the consequences of the team suspension, that reality is an acceptable collateral consequence,” Freniere stated.
All the while, BC swimmers and divers continued practicing, hoping the university would clear them for competition. They convened daily at the pool at 7 a.m., Sommer said, and adhered to a practice plan provided by the coaches. They returned to the pool every afternoon.
“I was really impressed by how many people were there every day,” Sommer said. “That’s why I love the team, because they showed their commitment to each other through really tough times.”
Sommer participated in a couple of team-building activities before the hazing allegations surfaced. She joined the team at Alumni Stadium Labor Day weekend for a BC football game, but she did not attend any team parties that weekend and said she was unaware of any misconduct.
About two weeks later, she was visiting several seniors in a dormitory when athletic director Blake James announced in a statement online that hazing had occurred.
“We were all shocked,” Sommer said. “I was like, how can the school publicize this when it hasn’t been investigated and we didn’t even know about it?”
Sommer believes BC's response to the hazing allegations was much too sweeping and unfairly punished some team members.
She said she also was shocked when James voiced disgust with the swimmers and divers during a team meeting and told them he hoped for suspensions.
“In eight minutes, he canceled the rest of my swimming career without any proof,” Sommer said. “He was subjecting the whole team to the emotional impact of being charged before we could defend ourselves.”
BC spokesman Jack Dunn said James was conducting interviews for the school’s vacant football head coaching position and not available to comment.
At UCLA, Sommer chaired an advocacy group for female athletes and helped to represent the school’s athletes as the university transitioned from the Pac-12 conference to the Big Ten. In that role, she conferred with the UCLA chancellor and Big Ten commissioner, leading her to believe James would be similarly accessible.
That was not the case, however. Sommer recalled growing so frustrated when James did not reply to at least five of her emails that she showed up at his office one morning to request a meeting. After hours of being directed elsewhere, she said, she finally was cleared to meet with him near the end of the day.
She described the meeting as unproductive.
“He said he had ‘won the lawsuit’ and that the team was a problem, regardless if I or anyone else was not involved,” Sommer said.
In November, BC’s coaches recommended that Sommer and four teammates work out over the winter break at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado. Sommer took that as a hopeful sign that BC would lift the suspension.
It was not to be. The university ultimately parted ways with the coaches, suspended an unspecified number of team members for the spring semester, and, in January, extended the team’s suspension through August.
In an essay she shared with the Globe, Sommer wrote, “I cried as my final year of swim was taken from me for things I was proven not guilty of. I have cried after the ways the AD has treated me and the lack of care he has personally shown me. And I have cried carrying the emotional burden of trying to maintain athletic shape for a season that would end without a single meet.”
Sommer said she considers it unfair that BC took a more punitive approach than other universities in hazing cases.
In 2007, when James was the University of Maine’s athletic director, the school determined that the softball team had engaged in hazing at a “rookie party” involving alcohol, costumes, and lewd poses and gestures and that similar events had occurred in previous years. Yet the university suspended the team for only a week and placed it on probation for three years, while three players received suspensions ranging from two games to 10.
In 2017, Dartmouth punished swimmers and divers for hazing by suspending the team for three meets and placing the program on probation for a year.
In 2018, Colgate suspended its men’s swimmers and divers for a semester for “hazing and high-risk alcohol consumption.”
Also in 2018, Brown withdrew its men’s swimming and diving team from the Ivy League championships and suspended the program for the fall semester for hazing.
Other universities have imposed harsher penalties in hazing cases, while others have taken less stringent measures.
In BC’s case, Sommer said, the university’s response was too sweeping.
“The school lumped us all in when it shouldn’t have,” she said.
Sommer said she passed up prospective athletic scholarships from other schools to swim for BC, which does not offer athletic scholarships to swimmers and divers. Still, she said, she values her master’s program and her teammates. She worries about their futures.
In January, after imposing its final sanctions, the university stated, “It is the hope of BC Athletics that these measures will enable the program to move forward in the 2024-2025 academic year.”
Sommer said, “My fear is that the statement sounds open-ended. With the lack of transparency, it makes you wonder if BC would just pull the rug from under people.”
Dunn, BC’s spokesman, said Sommer’s fear is unfounded.
“The university intends to lift the suspension at the start of the fall semester,” he said.
Bob Hohler can be reached at
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