So cheerleaders allegedly haze now, too?

I know they consider themselves athletes, but anyway …

News broke Thursday morning of alleged hazing by Morton Ranch’s varsity cheerleaders toward their junior varsity counterparts. Supposedly it took place about a week ago when a tradition of pre-sunrise breakfasts turned into something far worse and degrading.

Ah, the break of August. Fall, and everything that comes with it, is just around the corner.

Included, unfortunately, is the inexplicable tradition of hazing. It goes on more places than anyone will admit, and somehow the idiotic belief that it’s acceptable is allowed to persist.

This column will not pass judgments on this individual case, not only because the investigation has just begun but because speculation simply isn’t necessary.

Moreover, I have to wonder for the 100th time why practices like hazing exist in the first place.

I know, it’s a great way for insecure people who try to lord themselves over others an excuse for doing so.

Anyway, back to the story.

Some comments on the local newspaper’s Web site, one reader in particular, actually tried to rationalize hazing.

“Sounds like the 50s all over again, we did that same thing way back then, plus we made people unroll toilet paper with their nose in the middle of main street, made them jump off the end of Bob Hall pier on Padre Island, threw them in the ocean in Downtown Corpus Christi in the middle of the night, made them walk the neighborhood begging for food,” wrote this reader who, judging from his or her screen name and story, has been something of a party animal for a few decades and still likes to throw back a brew or two. “It was called initiation and was a blast.”

He or she continued.

“People need to get a grip, kids today have no fun at all, I am glad I am getting old. We used to sit on the back of a convertible with the top down, drove all over town, up and down the beach, tied tires to the back of a vehicle and tore up and down Padre Island, had a blast, of course. … No one died (though there were a) few injuries, but that was part of the whole scene. God, I feel for kids today, their lives look miserable to me. Being too cautious and too safe will not make you live forever, it will just make it seem like it.”

Whether the writer was completely serious is for all intents and purposes unverifiable. But even just being 30 with hopefully a long way to go, I think I’ve lived well despite never having been tossed in the Gulf of Mexico or being forced to grovel for food.

For one, I’ve never grasped the point of hazing and initiations that involve anything more than lessons in an organization’s history and some kind of an oath pledging allegiance for as long as someone is involved in said organization.

I was in a fraternity in college. I pledged during spring quarter of my freshman year, and about the worst thing that happened to me in the six weeks between my introduction to the fraternity and my initiation was how long the night of our written test became because some of my fellow initiates were having a real tough time passing.

Nothing besides sleep patterns – and what freshman in college has those? – were harmed.

There was the story of my uncle, who 20 or so years earlier while pledging a honorary fraternity at the University of Dayton was taken with several other pledges about 40 miles north of the city, dropped off and made to find their way back.

He did, now makes six figures for a major oil company and has a nice place out in Clear Lake.

Bottom line is, if there’s no physical or mental harm, fine.

The most unfortunate aspect is you’re always going to have the so-called (or self-proclaimed) big shots who assert supposed authority for assertion’s sake.

Is it necessary in the first place?

Of course not.

We all need to know who the authority figures are, but there’s never a need to create contention simply for the sake of creating contention.

We had those guys in my fraternity, the ones I saw treat others like dog meat every chance they got just to reaffirm the “I’m better than you and don’t you forget it” status. In the eight-plus years since I graduated from college, I haven’t missed them and the way they treated and continue to treat people just to make themselves feel more important.

It harkens back to something my girlfriend’s brother and I were talking about just Wednesday. Somehow, we got on the subject of whether Americans are simply wound too tight, especially in comparison to European countries that are more liberal toward such vices as marijuana and prostitution. He’s a fervent believer that our crime rate would plummet if these things were legalized.

I tend to differ on those finer points, but the wider one is tough to argue.

If Americans weren’t so tightly wound, would we feel a constant need to continue proving our superiority, even in something so inconsequential as cheerleading?

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