Why Don O’Neill is OK with someone urinating on his leg
Oct 9, 2013, 10:18 AM | Updated: 10:27 am
Eleven Garfield High School students suspected of participating in an off-campus hazing incident are barred from campus while Seattle school officials determine what type of punishment might be warranted.
While some say the students might have taken things too far, with reports of teens dressed in diapers being pelted with eggs, some say hazing is just a part of life and can be fun.
“I was hazed and I hazed,” says KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill, who adds he wasn’t bothered by most of the things he was subjected to as an underling.
“I enjoyed carrying the football pads for the seniors. And it didn’t bother me when I’m standing in the shower and I turn around and some guy is urinating on my leg because I know I’m a freshman, he’s a senior, that’s part of getting hazed.”
While Ron & Don Show Producer Libby Denkmann was shocked Don wouldn’t be bothered by this, Don says he wasn’t because it was just part of being part of a group.
“That’s just part of being a football player at El Dorado High School,” says Don. “It was fun to get hazed. It was fun to feel like you were part of a group.”
Some even argue hazing, being as prevalent as it is, must be a part of our human nature.
“I think hazing actually responds to something deep in our core, some type of psychological thing,” says KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney, “because it happens in all societies and a lot of different organizations do that. I just find it hard to imagine that we could somehow weed out a part of human nature that’s been around for so long.”
While Don enjoyed his experience being hazed and hazing, he says it’s important people don’t take things too far.
“We never hurt anyone. We never spanked anyone. We never hurt anyone. We never hit anyone. We never took anyone’s dignity away. We just had fun with it,” says Don. “I guess the problem is what we’re learning here is when it’s taken too far and sometimes when you’re younger, you can’t figure out really where that line is.”
But, “urinating on your leg, what’s wrong with that?” says Don.
