Mater Dei High School president head of football hazing probe

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Father Walter Jenkins has resigned as president of Mater Dei High School in Orange County. Attorneys will soon start an investigation of the school’s athletic culture — after a football hazing incident left a student severely injured. Photo by Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Mater Dei High School’s football team is once again CIF champions, but the storied program has not been without controversy this season. A hazing ritual there left a young football player with a traumatic brain injury and a broken nose in February 2021. 

Now the school’s president, Father Walter Jenkins, has resigned just days before attorneys are scheduled to start an investigation on Thursday, interviewing students and staff about the school’s athletic culture. Father Jenkins started at Mater Dei in July. In a statement, the school says there is “no connection between the litigation and his departure from the school.”

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