Humor Issue: Hazing victim sues OU for ruining his Greek prospects

An Ohio University student who was force-fed grain alcohol, clubbed with aluminum baseball bats, then dragged naked behind a snowmobile during a fraternity hazing ritual has sued OU for suspending the frat.

Sophomore Templeton P. Ovine claims that by throwing the Alpha Stigma Ho fraternity off campus for hazing him, the university has now "œtotally screwed" his chances of being accepted into a Greek organization.

"Those guys are n-n-n-never going to let me rush again now," said Ovine, who as a result of the incident wears a neck brace, stutters violently from a cerebral cortex injury, walks with a cane, and displays the ghastly yellow-gray skin tone indicative of seriously impaired liver function. "They think I'm some kind of big c-c-crybaby squealer."

According to police reports, Ovine was among a squad of new "rushes" initiated into the "Alfs" last November, in a ritual that ended for Ovine with a trip to the emergency room, where his stomach was pumped and he was treated for full-body lacerations, acute alcohol poisoning, and compound fractures to his skull, left femur, four ribs and collarbone. He insists, however, that his injuries were self-inflicted.

"If I get stupid drunk, go uptown, l-l-lose all my clothes and fall down a f-f-fire escape into a dumpster full of discarded barbed wire, how is that somebody else's fault?" he demanded. "Guys, if any of you are reading this, like, no hard feelings, right? Alpha Stigs r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rule."

Details are sketchy, but witnesses say the hazing involved a 55-gallon drum of industrial-solvent-grade ethyl alcohol, a children's plastic wading pool, a garden hose, two dozen bottles of pancake syrup, a plastic garbage bag full of chicken entrails, a Taser stun gun, and a case of adult diapers.

Pledges were reportedly stripped naked except for a diaper, slathered with syrup and poultry innards, then forced to chug five gallons of raw alcohol each by siphoning it from the pool with the garden hose while older members offered droll comments about their oral proficiency.

Those who failed to suck out the entire contents of the pool in one continuous swallow were Tasered and beaten with bats. Pledges who lost control of their bladder or bowels during the ordeal were required to transfer their soiled diapers from their groins onto their heads, then perform an impromptu comical dance while singing, "I'm just a little black rain cloud" from Walt Disney's "Winnie the Pooh."

As penalty for flubbing the lyrics and falling over during an attempted "buck and wing," Ovine was reportedly tied by the wrists to the back of a snowmobile, then dragged eight times around the back yard of the fraternity house, which had first been strewn with nails, tacks, open safety pins, shards of broken glass, and piles of table salt.

"It sounds kind of worse than it is," suggested one witness, who asked to remain anonymous. "It's just a tradition "“ the older guys giving a hard time to the new guys. It's not like a nasty thing."

OU has suspended the frat for five years. Though denying it injured Ovine or the other pledges, the group last month pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of employing agricultural viscera in a humiliation ceremony without a permit, for which it was fined $200 and ordered to send Ovine a Hallmark "Sorry To Hear About Your Hazing" card.

Officers of the frat must also perform 45 minutes of community service, teaching elementary school children the principals of emotionally healthy playground behavior.

Fraternity president Chauncey R. McGlue described himself as "distressed, dismayed and disoriented" by the alleged behavior of his members.

"I had delivered a motivational talk to our new group of pledges earlier that same evening, on the importance of nail and cuticle hygiene, which really seemed to pique their interest," McGlue recalled. "They appeared cheerful and in good spirits, with no spurting blood or anything like that "“ just nibbling on my yummy cream-cheese-and-pimento canapés, sipping Hi-C tropical fruit punch and playing board games. And there was nary a drop of alcohol on view when I went night-night around 8 p.m. I can assure you most vehemently of that."

Ovine's self-filed lawsuit demands that OU lift Alpha Stigma Ho's suspension and pay the fraternity at least $25,000 in damages, and that the Athens County Common Pleas Court issue an injunction either installing him as a member of the fraternity, or providing him with "a group of friends of equivalent or greater social value."