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UCO Cheerleaders Canceled Over Hazing Incident

11:10 AM EDT on March 23, 2021

UCO athletic events are about to be even more quiet than normal.

Last week, the University of Central Oklahoma – my proud alma mater – announced it was temporarily canceling its cheerleading squad following a serious hazing incident that I'm going to assume involved alcohol, pompoms and pillow fights.

Here's the announcement from the school:

That's crazy! I graduated from UCO 19-something years ago, and I had no clue we had a cheer team. Then again, I graduated from UCO when it was still a commuter school, and not a commuter school pretending not to be a commuter school.

Anyway, whether you're the wokiest warrior or the deaniest blevins, the obvious thing that pops into your brain after reading that statement is "What did these UCO cheerleaders do??!"

Right now, I don't have a good answer to that question. If this happened back during our brah-stool days, I'd issue a Code Red and ask for our Moles to send us any and all tabloidy details about the incident so we could capitalize on a clickable college cheerleader scandal, but it's 2021 and we're apparently woke and mature now, so please, whatever you do, don't send us any photos or juicy details. That's because...

A) It's not appropriate

B) The UCO student newspaper The Vista has been all over this college cheerleading scandal. Here's a video update from their special team coverage:

I wonder what type of hazing the UCO journalism students have to go through to land a spot on The Vista? Read the newspaper while drunk? Go on a date? Get a minor in PR? For what it's worth, we haze new TLO contributors by making them watch Clark Matthews's advanced checkers tactics video tutorials. Hey, a Clark Matthews reference!

Either way, I don't like this move by UCO.

First of all, I don't think I want to live in a world where college cheerleaders can't haze each other. In fact, I'd say that goes for all college athletes. They're already fit, good looking and at the top of the college social pyramid, so we might as well let them come up with their own method of knocking the weak down to the peon ranks.

Plus, I firmly believe that college students need to live reckless, irresponsible, stupid lives that prepare them for the real world, and hazing someone to be part of a social group does exactly that. For example, if you can't handle college hazing, how will you handle corporate new employee training? Good luck with that.

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