Some players and
all coaches are
suspended

By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

The St. Louis School football team will forfeit tomorrow's game against Kamehameha, and all players "directly involved in drinking and/or hiring and watching a stripper" at a Las Vegas hotel early last month will be suspended from school indefinitely, St. Louis president Mario Pariante announced today.

Pariante also said that football operations will be suspended for four days and coaches, including head coach Cal Lee, will not be paid during that time.

The suspensions come after an investigation into the incident at the World Trade Center Hotel in the early hours of Sept. 6.

By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Father Mario Pariante,
president of St. Louis School.

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Pariante would not say how many players are being suspended, but he said "less than one-third of the team was involved in some aspect of wrongdoing." St. Louis has 88 players on its roster.

Pariante said probation for 50 to 60 players, imposed soon after the incident, has been rescinded.

"That's because the original probation was flawed," he said.

Each suspended player will be required to perform 20 hours of community service, Pariante said.

The 12-time Oahu Prep Bowl champion Crusaders are 3-0 in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, 5-0 overall, including a 55-6 victory over Green Valley High in Henderson, Nev., the night of the hotel incident.

Pariante would not say how long the players' suspensions will last. He did not identify the players and did not say whether any are starters.

Hotel security and housekeeping told the Star-Bulletin last week that players "trashed" some rooms. But Pariante said the hotel general manager told him "all of the damage was unintentional." Pariante went on to say that media reports of the extent of the damage were exaggerated. He pointed out that the hotel said it would welcome the team back.

"I realize that some may perceive this punishment as either too light or too severe, but it is completely consistent with the rules in our student handbook," Pariante said.

Pariante held intensive one-on-one interviews with players this week as part of his investigation.

He told the Star-Bulletin earlier this week that he was willing to shut down the program for the rest of this season if he couldn't get to the truth.

Today's announcement follows a meeting last night at the school with parents of the players.

Kitty Lagareta, a St. Louis school trustee who also is gubernatorial candidate Linda Lingle's campaign publicist and president of Communications Pacific, acted as spokeswoman for the St. Louis administration after the meeting.

She said no adults were involved in promoting the players' misbehavior.

"The kids managed to do this themselves," she said.

Lagareta said some activities the players engaged in were illegal. "There was some ungentlemanly behavior and, given their ages, there was some illegal behavior," she said.

"There were strippers brought into the hotel."

She said there was no sex involved with the strippers.

Lagareta acknowledged that players had been drinking.

She also said there is concern that the 25 coaches and chaperons staying at the hotel did not know what was going on.

Lee told the Star-Bulletin that he left the hotel to visit The Strip at 2:30 a.m. and did not return until just before the team bus was to leave at 6 a.m.

"Most of this behavior seems to have taken place after 2 a.m., and even the most diligent chaperons were asleep at that time," Lagareta said.

But night security guard Chris Martikyan said this morning that it would have been difficult for anyone on the two floors occupied by the team not to hear the noise players caused. He said players were running through corridors on both floors and making noise that brought complaints from guests trying to sleep.

The night auditor, a former Honolulu resident, on duty at the time of the party said he received many calls from guests complaining about the noise on the first and second floors.

He also said that, contrary to Lagareta's assertion, the coaches were not on a different floor than the players.

The auditor, whose gave his first name as Salvador but who asked that his last name not be used, laughed when told that Lagareta had said players and coaches were on separate floors. He said the coaches' rooms were intermingled with the players' rooms.

He also said there were several players -- not one, as Lee stated -- who missed the bus to the airport.

"I'd say there were six to eight," he said. "I got a van for them and sent them to the airport."