BYRON – A lawsuit filed against the Byron School District, its administrators and football coaches alleges a culture of "long-standing, systemic, ritualized" hazing and bullying in the Byron High School football program.
The suit, filed in Ogle County Circuit Court by a former student and football player and stemming from a naked "Oreo run" in 2018, comes on the eve of the Byron Tigers' state semifinal game Saturday against Princeton.
It's also the 1-year anniversary of an assault against the plaintiff – only identified as "John Doe" – on the bus ride home from the Tigers' 2018 state title loss in Champaign.
Fellow former football player Richard Messling, who also is named in the lawsuit, pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor battery stemming from the incident. According to the lawsuit, Messling placed his penis on the student's face while he was sleeping on the bus.
The suit identifies Messling as a leader and participant in the "Oreo run," an Oct. 26, 2018, event during which Byron football players raced naked across the school's football field with an Oreo cookie wedged in their buttocks. The incident resulted in a three-game suspension of 10 players for indecent exposure. Messling was not suspended.
The lawsuit names the following defendants: the Byron School District, Messling, head coach Jeffrey Boyer, a math teacher; assistant coach Sean Considine, a former Byron star, NFL player and Super Bowl champion; James Kann, the school's athletic director; high school principal Jay Mullens; assistant principal Michael Mandzen; and Cheeseman Coaches Inc., a motor coach company based in Milledgeville.
The suit claims the district, Considine, Kann, Boyer, Mullens and Mandzen were aware of the bullying and hazing that occurred among the school's football players, including "rituals" that allegedly date back to Considine's time at the school.
According to the lawsuit, the Oreo run took place immediately after a team-building event on Considine's farm.
"There is a pattern and practice of indifference that has been evident throughout my client's tenure at Byron High School, and that the bullying that has gone on has been part of this code of silence for the sake of the football program," said Stephanie White, senior trial attorney for the Sandman, Levy and Petrich law firm of Chicago. "The fact that the district would not take measures to follow their anti-bullying, anti-violence protocol in responding to incidents, and in fact target the student or make him a target when he does voice his concerns has revealed itself since he started at Byron High School."
Calls to the school district and Boyer Friday afternoon and evening were not returned.
The lawsuit lists several incidents involving the plaintiff, Messling and other football players in which the suit claims the plaintiff often was blamed for bullying or violence perpetrated against him, and that school and district officials failed to intervene.
"Every time he spoke out, he was reprimanded or became a target of further incidents of being picked on," White said.
The suit alleges the defendants failed to exercise reasonable care in supervision of the plaintiff, intentionally inflicted emotional distress and destroyed evidence, namely video recordings of the Oreo run and the assault on the bus.
School administrators investigated the Oreo run and deemed it was not hazing. The run is depicted in a scene from the college football-themed show "Blue Mountain State" in an episode titled "It's Called Hazing, Look It Up." Byron school administrators said the act was voluntary.
White said her client did not participate in the Oreo run and was bullied because of it.
"This Oreo cookie run is a good example of why the community should care," White said. "Unless the community and the families take a stand ... then it will continue to happen.
"Incidents like this, unless they are properly addressed, will eventually evolve into a cycle of violence where people die. ... In surrounding communities when this hasn't been addressed, it has led to suicide and all kinds of terrible things that happen to our kids."
The lawsuit is seeking in excess of $50,000 in damages. White said she plans to seek "far in excess of that."
"The purpose is to seek redress for what the district and coaches have allowed to happen to this student," she said, "and to raise awareness to make sure this never happens to anyone else again."
Corina Curry: 815-987-1371; ccurry@rrstar.com; @corinacurry
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