THE FUN OF

INITIATION

HAIRCUTS

   (PART ONE)

HAIRCUT HAZING,

FRESHMAN HAIRCUTS,

ROOKIE  HAIRCUTS.

One newly shaven freshman summed it up perfectly:  "If haircut initiations are so bad . . .. . . then why are they so damn much fun?"

Yes!!!  Exactly!!!

Other Websites  will tell you they think haircut hazing is bad.  Hey, they're entitled to free speech.  But this Web page is going to show you that, in reality, it's actually great fun . . . for everybody . . . for the victims . . . for the perpetrators . . . and for the rest of us who get to have fun watching the big grins on the faces of the initiates as they get shaved.

It's a lot more fun belonging to a team. a school or an organization if you've had to endure a mildly embarrassing but totally harmless initiation to get accepted.  Hey, it's just hair.  And it grows right back.  It's a small sacrifice for the team.

So if you like initiation haircuts, then this is the blog 

for you!!!

And if your behind-the-times school official forbids initiation haircuts, show them this article.  We'll explain to them why totally harmless haircut initiations can bring a lot of  good, clean fun – and great school spirit -- to any campus. 

Ask them, if it’s really so bad, then why is Mom standing in line beside your local mayor to have her head shaved at the local St. Baldrick charity head-shave event?  OK for Mom, but bad for her football playing sons?  

The “Mohawks Rock” Website bills itself as being “for those who rock extreme hairstyles.”  

Well, the most delightfully  “extreme” haircuts are the initiation haircuts being rocked by all those brave rookie athletes and school freshmen who cheerfully  submit to some of the wildest, most bizarre haircuts known to man.

Contrary to what the anti-hazing reformers would have you believe, these obviously aren't the faces of picked-on victims.  In most of these photos, the victims are enjoying the haircut initiation ritual just as much as the guys wielding the clippers.  It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience they wouldn't miss for anything.  They're cheerfully "taking one" for the school and the team.

Kind of like the first time you submitted to having your head shaved into a Mohawk.  

Remember how much fun that was?  Heck, yeah!!!  

So when the upperclassmen come at you with the buzzing clippers . . . just relax . . . put a big smile on your face . . . and enjoy the hell out of it.  It's a truly wild experience you may only get to enjoy once in your life..

The girls will love your bristly tuft..  They'll want to run their fingers over it.    

They think it's really hot.  Why?  Who knows?  Maybe because for at least 2,600 years, ever since ancient Sparta, an initiation has literally reeked of masculinity.  . 

Many sociologists and psychologists argue that -- throughout history -- it has greatly helped boys grow up into healthy manhood if they are allowed to endure some rite of passage.  

IF YOU’VE EVER ENDURED A HAIRCUT INITIATION, THEN YOU’RE OUR HERO!!!   To those of us on “Mohawks Rock” who are intrigued by “extreme” haircuts, our special heroes have always been those freshmen and rookie athletes who have the  guts to willingly submit to an embarrassing initiation haircut – and who are macho enough to wear those jaw-dropping haircuts with pride for a week or two of harmless hazing.  We look at their carved-up hair and think to ourselves:  “Wow, I hope I would have as much courage as they do, if I had to go through that initiation.” 

 

Our heroes also include the upperclassmen and veteran team members who wield the clippers to create those jaw-dropping masterpieces as a way to warmly welcome freshmen and rookies to the team, thereby keeping alive the fun tradition of haircut hazing that our fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers before us enjoyed. Thanks, guys, for keeping up a great tradition.

For generations, our fathers and grandfathers have delighted in regaling their young sons and grandsons with harrowing stories of their own humiliating haircut  initiations in days gone by – stories that shocked but strangely intrigued us at the same time.  Many of us spent a good bit of time secretly trying to envision what dignified grandpa must have looked like with his hair carved up like a hot-cross bun – and sort of envying him. 

 

Our heroes also include those very wise parents who have the courage to openly and enthusiastically defend the right of their sons to willingly submit to that never-to-be-forgotten,  cherished rite of passage – parents with the courage to stand up against "nanny government" and prissy school officials and anti-hazing reformers who try to discourage this totally harmless fun.  

Below, we’ll tell the firsthand stories of a number of parents who have openly defended the haircut hazing of their own sons as just  boys being boys. 

Our heroes also include the rapidly increasing numbers of school officials with the wisdom and forbearance to realize that -- as long as it's voluntary -- a little harmless fun with hair clippers can add enormously to school spirit and team comradeship -- and a really fun atmosphere on campus.  

Increasingly, school officials are realizing -- very belatedly -- that fun-filled initiation haircuts (when strictly voluntary) bring students together in a powerful bonding experience, where everybody goes through the same ritual shearing that gives everyone a good, healthy laugh -- freshmen as well as upperclassmen. 

Nothing creates such a powerful, instant bond between freshmen and upperclassmen as when freshmen cheerfully volunteer to let the upperclassmen do to them the same thing that previously was done to the upperclassmen.

By allowing the harmless haircuts,  wise school officials enormously reduce the temptation of the youngsters to veer off into truly dangerous initiation rituals . .  like the forced consumption of potentially fatal amounts of alcohol.

This will surprise anti-hazing reformers.  But do you know what is the single biggest protection against truly dangerous hazing?  Silly haircuts. 

So check out the photos below, showing the big grins on the faces of happy freshmen proudly showing off their initiation haircuts to their fellow students.  And check out the photos later in this article showing incoming students at some colleges voluntarily signing permission slips -- or getting their parents to sign permission slips -- just so they can willingly submit to an initiation haircut.  . . . to give them that  powerful feeling of belonging.

  

 

Yes, if you're a parent, you’ll be a little embarrassed taking your son to church with his hair shaved in weird patterns.  But the kid will secretly be proud of himself for having the courage to go through it.  And the church members will never tell you . . . but secretly they'll enjoy seeing it.

STOP HAZING DEATHS!!!  As of October 2017, there had been three separate college hazing deaths in just 8 months in the U.S., all of them apparently resulting from fatal alcohol poisoning related to the forced over-consumption of alcohol in hazing . . . but in the past century, not a single death or injury from harmless initiation haircuts.  Tell your local school officials to stop wasting their time worrying about wacky, totally harmless initiation haircuts -- and instead start cracking down really hard on the truly dangerous hazing practices.  PEOPLE KEEP DYING -- WHILE SCHOOL OFFICIALS WORRY ABOUT . . . HAIRCUTS???   

A STARTLING FACT:    Rarely do the guys whose heads get shaved in haircut initiations ever complain!!!   Almost never!!! The victims themselves usually enjoy the bonding experience immensely.  They submitted willingly.-- and enthusiastically.  Have you noticed that whenever anti-hazing reformers make a stink about kids caught wearing initiation haircuts, in perhaps 99% of those cases, the shaven kids themselves inevitably insist the haircuts were strictly consensual -- insist that they actually volunteered to be shaven, just for the powerful bonding experience.

That leaves the reformers looking laughable -- protecting the kids from a haircut the kids themselves actually asked for..So the reformers respond by going one step further and making themselves look even more foolish -- by passing laws in some states making it illegal for a kid to ask for an initiation haircut.  Huh???  Mr. Bumble, a comic character in the famous Dickens novel "Oliver Twist" said it best:  "If the law supposes that, then the law is a ass -- a idiot."  This is one of the all-time great examples of nanny government run amok.

The only saving grace is that law enforcement -- having a lot more common sense than school officials -- rarely, if ever, wastes valuable court time prosecuting anyone for a silly haircut -- if the kid wanted it.  They'd be laughed out of court..

WHERE ARE ALL YOU LIBERTARIANS OUT THERE WHO OUGHT TO BE DEFENDING A BOY'S RIGHT TO GET A SILLY HAIRCUT IF HE WANTS ONE?

Aren't you the ones who hate "nanny government?"  Government that wants to tell you what kind of haircut you can wear? 

If school officials are genuinely worried about kid's feelings, then maybe the kids they should really worry about are the ones who never get to enjoy the fun of initiation haircuts -- because nobody cared enough to initiate them.  The kids who feel left out.  Hell, some of those kids would literally pay someone to take the clippers to their head, just so they can look  like they belong. 

This grinning athlete, for example, enjoyed his haircut hazing  so much for the team-bonding experience that he videotaped his own initiation in the mirror . . .

. . . just so he could remember the fun experience years later.

Despite what the anti-hazing reformers will tell you, the haircut initiation is one of the most eagerly anticipated rituals of boyhood.  Surprisingly, rather than freshmen dreading the haircut, you will read newspaper accounts below from several veteran team members who say they were actually contacted by incoming freshman athletes -- sometimes weeks before the opening of the fall semester -- and asked:  "How soon can I get to have my head shaved?"  .. 

INITIATION HAIRCUTS ARE DESCENDANTS OF THE MOHAWK: 

Three or four decades ago -- and going all the way back to the late 1940s -- the basic Mohawk was the initiation haircut of choice for football players. Hundreds (thousands?) of rookie football players in those days all over the U.S. took to the field wearing initiation Mohawks that the seniors inflicted on them..

Here's a historic photo of sophomore football players newly elevated to the Nebraska Cornhuskers varsity team in 1950, proudly bowing their heads to show off their initiation Mohawks to the newspaper cameras. .

But when upperclassmen realized the freshman players actually loved their initiation Mohawks -- actually looked forward to getting shaved -- the upperclassmen began kicking the initiation haircuts up a few notches into more and more radical, jaw-dropping haircuts, like the ones we see now in the NFL.

Even the wilder initiation haircuts are, in reality, just astonishingly inventive variations of the Mohawk -- . . just bristly tufts of hair standing out in shocking contrast to an otherwise shaven skull.  They are, in essence, just “drunken Mohawks.”  And some of them are so inventive, they truly become works of art – folk art.    .

For those of us who love "extreme" haircuts that the "Mohawks Rock" Website celebrates, the initiation haircut is a "socially acceptable" opportunity for us average guys to have the fun of exploring haircuts so extreme that, if we wore them every day, people might think we were . . . well, just a little bit crazy.  But if it's part of a hazing ritual, everybody just chuckles . . . and shrugs it off . . . and says, "Don't worry.  He's just being initiated.  He's just proving he's tough enough to take it like a man." 

When I was in college and seniors on the football team inflicted shocking initiation haircuts on all the freshman players, the rest of us students had enormous admiration for the victims for having the guts to cheerfully submit to the clippers. 

 

It may sound crazy, but those bizarre haircuts were sort of an emblem of intense masculinity.  Because it clearly took a lot of courage to endure the embarrassment.  And because the girls on campus thought those initiation haircuts were “incredibly hot.”  See item below where girls vote on which NFL rookie has the “hottest” initiation haircut and numerous  first-hand accounts below from guys who say they never attracted as many girls as they did when they were forced to wear an embarrassing initiation haircut around the campus  for a week or two.  Those weird haircuts were babe magnets.  Go figure.

 

THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET:   Shhhh!!!  Don’t tell a soul.  It’s the dirty little secret that nobody talks about . . .  The surprising fact that  most men actually think haircut hazing is (gasp) a lot of fun. 

 

Embarrassing?  Hell yes.  But fun.  

Usually it's the shaven kids themselves who rush to post photos of their own initiation haircut online for all the world to see.  They're damned proud of those embarrassing haircuts!!! . . . because by voluntarily submitting to that ordeal, you've proven to your team mates that you're man enough to "take one for the team."  .  

Read on and we’ll share with you (below) a large number of first-hand, personal accounts in which scores of guys who submitted to initiation haircuts describe in their own words why it was an exciting, team-building, bonding experience that they thoroughly enjoyed.  They vigorously defend the right of boys to voluntarily endure that cherished and greatly anticipated rite of passage. 

 

The popularity of initiation haircuts is exploding, thanks partly to the NFL’s wildy popular  annual shaving of each new crop of pro football rookies – one of the most eagerly anticipated highlights of each new football season.

The best part of the NFL's annual ritual is when the newly shaven rookies are forbidden to wear hats and are forced to parade their initiation haircuts in front of 

the news cameras . . .

. . . and in front of young fans waiting for autographs who are always delighted at the sight of their athletic heroes with the embarrassing haircuts. 

.

 

Meantime, high school and college teams are gleefully copying the initiation rituals of their NFL heroes, faster than high school principals and coaches can discourage the growing trend.  Get used to it, principals.  You’ve lost the battle . . . so just embrace it and enjoy the haircuts.  For God’s sake, let boys be boys. 

                                                              

                          

 

To prove that a  great many parents likewise get a kick out of the haircuts -- there are tons of photos like this one showing shaven boys posing proudly with their initiation haircut while their parents gleefully snap photos of their sons’ wacky haircuts to remember the fun decades later. 

It's a highlight of every family scrapbook.  They're proud of their sons' guts..

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET #2:  IT'S ACTUALLY KIND OF FUN TO GET STARED AT.

Remember what it was like when you ventured out in public for the very first time with your first-ever, freshly-shaven Mohawk? Was it a little bit embarrassing when you suddenly realized that everyone was staring at that bristly scalp lock atop your egg-bald skull?  Hell yes!!!  

But after the first day or so sporting your daring new scalp lock in public, a strange thing happened -- remember? Suddenly you were gobsmacked with the totally unexpected realization that -- surprise!!! -- you found you actually enjoyed getting stared at for your incredibly sexy-looking scalp lock, right?  Especially when people -- both men and women -- began telling you:  "Wow!!!  I love your Mohawk.  I wish I had balls enough to wear one like yours."

Suddenly, when you realized that most of those stares were stares of envy and admiration, you stopped being embarrassed by your Mohawk.  Suddenly you realized that you actually enjoyed flaunting your Mohawk in public and being stared at.  Remember?

Well, guess what.  It's pretty much the same way wearing a really great initiation haircut in public. When you venture out in public for the first time with your mutilated haircut, of course it will be embarrassing. That's why it's called an initiation.  

But . . . just like with a Mohawk (which, after all, was the original initiation haircut decades ago) . . .  . . after the first day or so, you suddenly realize that most of those stares are -- surprise!!! -- stares of admiration for your guts in agreeing to "take one for the team."

. 

Like the college rugby player we'll describe below who proudly wore his initiation haircut to a job interview -- and found that the employer loved it, because the employer himself had once undergone haircut hazing by the same rugby team.

THE NFL BRINGS INITIATION HAIRCUTS OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND INTO THE OPEN, ALLOWING THE WHOLE WORLD TO ENJOY THEM:   

Until the past two decades, haircut hazing was mostly an underground and semi-secretive practice – which merely added to the allure.  College and high school block letter clubs for varsity athletes would often take their initiates to a secret, off-campus site for their ritual head shaving, in order to remain below the radar and avoid persnickety school principals and anti-hazing laws.  

 

But now, instead of hiding the initiation ritual, the NFL teams plaster the Internet with videos of their rookies submitting to the clippers so their fans can enjoy the fun.

And the biggest factor in the public’s sudden embrace of the pure fun of haircut hazing has been the amazingly good-natured acceptance of the initiation haircuts by the hapless NFL rookies themselves, who have to wear the mutilated haircuts in public, sometime for a couple of weeks until  the first exhibition game of the new season.  

The NFL rookies are so proud of their initiation haircuts that they actually Tweet out photos of themselves getting shaved to all their fans to enjoy.  .

The annual sight of large numbers of NFL rookies – with big grins on their faces – proudly showing off their initiation haircuts to the news cameras in an eagerly anticipated rite of passage leaves the anti-hazing reformers looking rather ridiculous after many years of warning that haircut hazing was cruel and inhumane.  It isn't.

Hey, it’s just a guy thing.

SOME HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COACHES THINK INITIATION HAIRCUTS ARE A WONDERFUL TEAM BONDING TOOL -- AND LOTS OF FUN

A respected football coach, athletic director and sports consultant at a Southern California high school posted the following  comment on his Website about Episode 2 of the 2015 season of the HBO documentary "Hard Knocks," when cameras were allowed to follow the Houston Texans through training camp:

"One of the really great scenes of this episode," said the high school coach, "was when the veterans gave the rookies some fun haircuts.  This sort of thing is very important for coaches to help guide: team chemistry. This type of activity can bring the team together.  It helps them to loosen up.  It helps them to bond. You gotta have a little fun."

Hey, school principals:  Are you listening?  The coach has spoken.  And he's absolutely right.  Keep reading, and you will see below an almost endless parade of football players and other athletes enthusiastically praising initiation haircuts as one of the most powerful team bonding tools ever invented.  

LOTS OF GIRLS THINK INITIATION HAIRCUTS ARE “REALLY HOT” ON MALE ATHLETES: 

 

The popular “Fantasy Football Girls” Webcast decided to do a whole show, voting on which NFL rookie had the “hottest” initiation haircut.  Here were two of their two winners – both of which they described as “really hot.”

 

So you want a date with a great-looking gal?  Just sign up for a team that gives really “hot” initiation haircuts – and get ready to fend off the chicks who can’t wait to feel your . . . uh, bristly tuft.

Let 'em run their fingers over it.  Enjoy it.    

In this blog below, I’ll print a number of first-hand accounts in which astonishingly large numbers of guys who submitted to haircut hazing will tell you in their own words why they actually enjoyed the experience.  ..   

 

 

 

A SHAVEN ROOKIE’S  INSIDER LOOK AT HAZING IN NFL TRAINING CAMPS

 

By Ryan Riddle, Correspondent

 

[That’s Ryan, the author,  on  the right with his head shaved during an NFL initiation.]  Ryan played defensive end at the University of California. Afterward, he was drafted by the Oakland Raiders and spent time with the New York Jets, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Avengers.]

He was asked by an online sports blog to write a description of what it was like to submit to an NFL head-shaving initiation, and here’s his fascinating account:

 

"Every first-year player entering the NFL comes with the distinct understanding that rookie hazing is a rite of passage designed to humiliate.

.

 

"One of the first and most common hazing experiences a rookie encounters around this time of year is intended to strip away any remaining ego you may have held onto from the star-studded college days. What better way to do that than to attack one of the most identifiable visual elements of our character—our hair?

"The veterans gather around the locker room equipped with a pair of clippers and a series of bad fashion ideas.  Unfortunately, there’s really no escaping the inevitable. In fact, the rookies who fight the hardest to preserve their precious locks or manicured waves typically are the ones who get it the worst.

 

"Veterans love holding “a fighter” down and watching him squirm as they take away something dear to his heart. .

 

"The best thing to do throughout the process is to ride the wave and learn to laugh at yourself along the way.  Trust me, it goes by a lot easier if you don’t resist or put up a fight.

 

"Some guys end up being adorned with intricate designs etched into their head with the craftsmanship of a true artist, . . . 

"I personally was one of the guys who went quietly into the barber’s chair from hell. Realizing the futility of a struggle, I figured this could all be viewed in a positive light. After all, it’s not every day that one gets to say they were defaced by NFL football players.

"It also meant that any humiliation regarding my appearance would be null and void considering it was manufactured by the very guys who would be initiating the ridicule.

"Besides, we’re essentially isolated from society, so any worry of public criticism is not really a factor, except for when my first game in the NFL happens to be played with giant patches of hair missing from all over my head.

[Yes, those really are two balls and a penis carved into this hapless rookie's hair. You always knew it took real balls to play in the NFL.  Right?  Well, now he has them.  For everyone to see.  (Ahem) Including his mother.]

 

"This daily hazing ritual can be somewhat stressful because, if either the helmet or shoulder pads of a veteran happens to be left out on the practice field, well, there might be a few rookies taped to the goalpost at the end of practice the next day.

"This isn’t a good situation to find yourself in because, once taped down, you’re essentially at the mercy of any and everything that may come your way. Rarely does being taped down not come with some extracurricular fun.  

 

"Every day there are little things to remind us rookies of our lowly status -- like having huge chunks of our hair shaved off.

.

 

"I look back on it now with a smile and sense of pride. After all, it isn’t every day you can have a room full of guys—many of whom you grew up admiring—on the floor, laughing with tears in their eyes."

Every summer when all the NFL teams open their football camps and welcome all the new rookie victims with bizarre initiation haircuts . . . and force the humiliated rookies to show off their haircuts to news photographers . . . newspapers all over the nation delight in publicizing the year’s new crop of rookie haircut designs.  

 

Football fans love seeing them.   The rookie haircuts are the first visible sign that autumn is almost here, and the new football season is about to begin.  Yay!!!   Bring on the clippers.  And the victims.  We can't wait to see this year's shavings. 

 

THE GIRLS THOUGHT THIS INITIATION HAIRCUT WAS “INCREDIBLY HOT":

Here’s the back story behind that jaw-dropping  “horizontal Mohawk” that the two girls in their Webcast  mentioned above voted among the “ten hottest NFL initiation haircuts of 2014.”

   

This rookie kicker for the Washington Redskins, Zack Hocker, told his new teammates that if they would agree not to require him to stand up and sing a song on initiation night, he would willingly submit to any haircut of the team’s choice.  Oops.  Bad idea, Zach.

 

A vote was taken by the team to choose which haircut style to inflict on the hapless rookie, and Hocker had to submit to what he described as a “horizontal Mohawk,”  They didn’t allow him to wear a cap to cover it.

 

Some anti-hazing critics demanded that the team let him out of their requirement that he wear the cross-cut haircut at the first exhibition game.  But Hocker, a good sport to the end, insisted on wearing the haircut until the veteran players gave him permission to shave it off.     

He even good-naturedly tweeted out a photo of his embarrassing haircut to all his fans, saying:  “Nobody ever said your first season was going to be easy.” 

 

 

 

 

SUPER BOWL STAR QUARTERBACK TOM BRADY SAYS HAIRCUT HAZING IS GREAT FUN 

Back In August of 2013, Super Bowl star quarterback Tom Brady took a pair of clippers to the heads of a brand new crop of Rookies arriving at the New England Patriots summer camp and gave them the embarrassing haircuts they were expected to submit to.  Afterward, Brady provided reporters with one of the best descriptions ever given of just why the annual haircut ritual is eagerly anticipated by both the victims and the perpetrators as a way to lighten the drudgery of training camp.  

One reporter described the ritual this way:

 

“On Tuesday, the moment arrived that all New England Patriots rookies have been dreading: Time for the traditional shaving of the rookies.  With Tom Brady taking the lead with clippers in hand, the Patriots quarterback showed off his amateur barbering skills as the rookies were treated to some truly abysmal hair-don’ts.

“Said Brady on the hazing tradition: ‘They look good, don’t they? It was fun today -- probably the most exciting part of camp was watching all this hair get cut off. So, it was actually a lot of fun.’”   (That’s one of Brady’s haircut victims on the right with the shocking half-shaved head.)  

 

“There were some good ones,” said Brady.  “There was real creativity. The veterans sit around and think about what they want to do to the rookies’ hair.”

 

Brady told another publication:  “We always cut the rookies’ hair. It’s a fun thing. It’s a camaraderie thing. It’s kind of a group sacrifice, we’re-all-in-it-together type of thing, and it’s done in a playful way. . . . It’s done as more to bring the team together and not drive the team apart.”

 

Fortunately for Brady, there are no surviving photos on the Internet of the way Patriot veterans hacked up his own hair when he was a rookie.  “I don’t know what kind of a whack job I started out with after initiation night, he told reporters. “But I ended up with it being completely shaved bald for the first game.  It was fun.  They got me pretty good.”

SHAVEN INDIANAPOLIS COLTS ROOKIES EXPLAIN WHY INITIATION HAIRCUTS ARE FUN  

 

"I think it's a genuine honor when a group of guys who have been successful in this league for a long time come and grab you and say, 'Hey, come with us. We want to initiate you,' said the shaven second round draft pick guard Jack Mewhort. “I willingly said, 'Yes, let's do it.' It's fun!!!   It's something I'll remember fondly for a long, long time!!!"

'It was all about a sense of brotherhood," said Colts defensive end and team barber Cory Redding. "The rookies were willing to happily submit to it."  

One of the most shocking of all initiation haircuts is, without a doubt, the half-shaved head  -- a full head of luxuriant hair on one side of the skull, with the other side shaved egg bald. 

The first time most people ever saw that jaw-dropping haircut was almost 20 years ago in July 1998, when the Oakland Raiders shaved half the head of rookie right guard Gennaro DiNapoli.    The photo on the left shows what DiNapoli looked like when he arrived at training camp with all his hair intact when the rookie arrived at the Raiders’ summer camp in Napa, CA.   

But two days later, newspaper readers were stunned when DiNapoli’s initiation haircut (seen here on the right) was splashed across Page 8-D with all the hair shaved off one side of his head.  

Reporters asked him what on earth happened to him.  “Well,” he said with a chuckle, “I can’t tell you because Coach Gruden said there’s no hazing allowed – so I can’t rat on my boys. All I can tell you is that I think they’re going to get rid of the other side Saturday night.  

"I'm a rookie, so I’ll have to take this stuff all year long.  But next year I’ll be doing it to someone else.  And I can hardly wait.”

Amidst his humiliation, little did DiNapoli suspect that his photo in countless American newspapers would suddenly inspire an epidemic of half-shaven heads at other NFL training camp over the next few years.

And 12 years later, the Raiders would repeat their half-shaven masterpiece on offensive lineman Alex Parsons, shown here on the left.  

ONE SPORTSWRITER DESCRIBED NFL HAIRCUT HAZING THIS WAY: 

“Before we all get caught up in the important NFL issues . . . let’s take a few minutes to enjoy the lighter side of NFL training camps. I am talking, of course, about the rookie hazing, and in particular about the tradition of giving rookies absurd haircuts. . . . They won’t help you win your fantasy football league, but they’re still worth a few minutes of your time.”

ANOTHER SPORTSWRITER’S TAKE: 

 

 

Contrary to what the anti-hazing reformers would have you believe, he says the NFL rookies themselves actually cherish the scrapbook photos of the humiliating rookie haircuts they had to endure – a prized memento, proof of their acceptance by a tough  team in a tough sport."

 

 

 

ANOTHER SPORTSWRITER PUT IT THIS WAY:

“Rookie haircuts?  It's just men being men. We’re talking about a sport where men punch each other in the nuts while on the bottom of piles.  But initiation haircuts are bad?"

"So the vets have to really enjoy the rookie haircuts. Of course you remember Tebow’s Friar Tuck look. It was, and still is, the most recognized rookie haircut in rookie haircut history.

"But these vets keep getting more creative by the year. Even if they go on to a long career, these guys will still show their kids and grandkids photos of their embarrassing rookie haircut." 

“HAIRCUT HAZING EXTENDS TO COLLEGES”

 

To no one’s surprise – amidst all the nationwide publicity showing jaw-dropping NFL haircuts –college and high school teams all over the U.S. soon began copying the delightful NFL haircut itual.  Here are some college examples.   

 

Here’s how one sportswriter in 2010 described the spread of initiation haircuts from the NFL to college teams:

 “Haircut hazing has officially reached epidemic status. 

“Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention as closely in past years or maybe it wasn’t as well-documented, 

but I don’t ever remember more rookies — and now freshmen — with bad haircuts leading up to the regular season. 

“This haircut photo is a first for the college-level Minnesota Golden Gophers.  Freshmen all over the country should now beware: haircut hazing has reached the collegiate level.”  

 Here are two more University of Minnesota freshmen football players after they submitted to being shaved. 

  

 

What you’re about to see below is a series of other  firsthand accounts, written by rookie athletes and high school and college freshmen, describing their experiences when upperclassmen and veteran team members took electric clippers and carved bizarre patterns into their hair – and then required them to wear those embarrassing haircuts for days or weeks afterward.  

 

You’d expect it to be a pretty awful experience, right?  Well, get ready for a major shock.

On the contrary, almost ALL of these victims said they were intensely proud of their initiation haircuts – and intensely proud of themselves for having the guts to endure a little embarrassment wearing those mutilated haircuts in public. 

 

A surprising number of the high school and college victims described it as an exciting, life-changing experience that gave them a powerful, new, outgoing self-confidence, often turning shy young men into the life of the party.

Most boys growing up tend to be a bit shy – some painfully so.  But after you’ve been forced to attract stares by walking around town for a couple of weeks with a humiliating haircut, hardly anything else is ever again going to embarrass you.  So the initiation haircut can surprisingly be  a very valuable, healthy welcome to manhood.   

 

BASEBALL FRESHMEN GET NEW TRIMS

[Here’s a student newspaper account of baseball team initiation haircut fun at a Southern church-affiliated university]

“There is definitely a new faux pas on this campus. Two words: bad haircut.

 

“Having a hard time imagining some big, macho guys that all have coincidently bad haircuts? Allow me to explain.

 

“Every year, the university baseball team does a form of “freshman initiation” where it thinks of the worst possible do’s for the new players. This year, the seniors did not take their task lightly in embarrassing the poor freshmen.

 

“According to the older players, this tradition is a part of the freshmen gaining the respect from their veteran teammates and handling it with a smile, whether it is genuine or not.

 

“They all knew it was coming, but on Monday the eight youngsters walked in the locker room to find several hair trimmers lined up, and they automatically knew what was about to happen. Nervously, they took their seats and allowed their teammates to go to work on their hair with complete freedom.

All eight freshmen with their new haircuts. 

 

“While there were laughs and jokes on the older side, the freshmen bit their tongues and toughed it out.

 

“These horrid hairstyles only had to last a little over 24 hours, yet they had to be worn around school for a full day (with no hats allowed) as well as flaunted at chapel in front of the entire student body.

 

“Conveniently, the baseball team sits in the front row, allowing their hair to be on display for everyone to see.  From pictures trimmed into the backs of their heads, to Mohawks, to “old man cuts,” the boys wore it all.

 

“From what I have heard from the guys, they had a good attitude about it and knew that it is simply a part of being on the team.".

 

The girls on that campus think the initiation haircuts are very sexy.  One posted this comment:  "This was great!!!  Its always a fun day when the freshman boys have this done to them.. I like it best when they have long hair…because then their “do’s” are even more hilarious!"  Another girl posted this comment:  "I SO wish I would have gotten to see that shaving. Good for them for biting their tongues and doing it,"  

 

AND HERE'S ANOTHER CHRISTIAN COLLEGE IN THE SOUTH THAT DOES A REALLY GREAT JOB OF CARVING UP THE HAIR OF FRESHMAN BASEBALL PLAYERS

 

Haircut initiations seem to be especially popular at church-owned colleges.  Which I guess proves that church schools enjoy a good initiation as much as any secular school.  Good for them!!!

 

HERE'S THE PHOTO THAT PROVES INITIATION HAIRCUTS ARE GREAT FUN FOR BOTH SIDES -- THE FRESHMAN VICTIMS & THE UPPERCLASSMEN MANNING THE CLIPPERS

One freshman baseball player at the same religious university shown in the initiation photos above, upon emerging from beneath the clippers, gets a big welcoming hug from all the upperclassmen who have just shaved him -- a hug thanking him for being man enough to prove his devotion to the baseball team by voluntarily submitting to an embarrassing haircut.

Most freshmen everywhere say they openly welcome the initiation head shavings because they bring precisely this kind of powerful bonding with other team members.  . 

 

Part of the ritual is for each victim to show off his initiation shave to the upperclassmen after they finish shearing him -- as seen in the photos above.  Judging by the big grins on the faces of everyone, it's hard to tell who's having more fun with the ritual -- the victims or the barbers

This freshly-shaven rookie on a Brazilian soccer team likewise gets a big welcoming hug from veteran team members to thank him for submitting to an initiation haircut.

That's a really nice part of the ritual.  Shave 'em first -- then a welcoming hug to thank the rookie for being man enough to take one for the team...

The freshman victims in this swimming team initiation have voluntarily gone without haircuts for several months, just to give the upperclassmen a lot more hair to have fun shaving off.  

As one college girl put it:  "My favorite is when the boys have long hair…because then their “do’s” are even more hilarious!"

                           

'RUGBY HAIR TRADITION BONDS TEAMMATES"

 

“The time has come again for of spotting unconventional haircuts and finding out who is new to the men’s rugby team.

“Every year, the rugby team has a tradition for the incoming freshmen. They can get their heads shaved in a comical way as a voluntary initiation rite, and as a way to bond with their teammates.

"'We wake them up in the middle of the night, and we have hair clippers waiting," said one of the team's captain.  'And, with their consent, we shave weird designs into their hair.  

"'And then all the upperclassmen get to sign their names on the bodies of the shaven freshmen in indelible ink.  .  

“’The haircut makes them feel like a vital part of the rugby team, because it's so visible.  It’s a part of joining a real brotherhood, and a way to connect with people. Having this experience that other people had is just something that brings people together,’ the captain of the rugby team said.

“Players say the tradition has created some fond memories.  ‘You’ll probably be surprised to hear this,’ said the freshman player on the left, ‘but sometimes it’s a really great experience to make yourself look like an idiot, and be really proud of it.’”

“’I actually had a job interview two days after the seniors carved up my hair.  I wore a suit jacket; I got all dressed up for this interview, and I slicked down the fragments of hair I had left.  Fortunately, one of the guys who was interviewing me was a former rugby player, and he knew the tradition, so he found it quite interesting.’

[Presumably he got the job -- because his boss really liked his initiation haircut.]

“Players said the tradition is a positive way to bring the rugby team together as a community.

“’You bet your bippy it’s good for the team,” said one freshman, after allowing seniors to mutilate his haircut.  ‘It was voluntary,’ he said.  ‘I wanted to feel more like a part of the team.  Actually, I really enjoy it.’

“The freshmen aren’t the only ones who get their yearly haircuts. Since last year [in order to get around the college’s rules against freshman hazing], the team captains and often some of the older members of the rugby team volunteer as well to submit to the initiation ritual, as a way to bond with the freshmen and keep it from becoming something negative.”  [That means the co-captains and some of the older team members volunteer to go through the haircut initiation every year for four straight years, getting their heads shaved every year. What a great team tradition!!!]]

“’I think the haircuts are a really cool tradition,’ said one freshman rugger with a whacked-up haircut.  ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I really take pride in the initiation haircut – and pride in the team.’

 “’It doesn’t only happen to new members of the rugby team. We gave our captain a monkey tail beard, that goes from his sideburn, down his chin, and up around his chin, so that it looks like a monkey tail was on his face,’ said a senior team member.

“’I think it’s a lot of fun, and it’s a good bonding experience,’ said another freshman sporting his new haircut. 

“Although the tradition is optional, the majority of rugby players participate. ‘When they see the haircut,’ said another freshman, ‘people around me know I’m part of the team, which is really  awesome, because the haircut identifies me as a rugby player.   It just makes me more outgoing and social, even though I have a crazy haircut.  Maybe because I have a crazy haircut.   It’s a very communal thing.  It creates a real brotherhood.’”

A junior rugger who submitted to the initiation when he was a freshman player put it this way:  "There's definitely something to be said for teammates going through something awful together, like embarrassing haircuts."  He said it's a great way to create ties with other teammates.  "I think it’s a really fun and important part of the rugby team to have some sort of initiation.  It creates bonds and memories.”

Another upperclassman rugby player on the team, recalling his own initiation haircut, said while he did not exactly enjoy it, nevertheless getting his hair cut by the club’s returning members was definitely something that created a very deep bond.  “I got a really bad haircut,” he said. “I think it was a fun thing to go through because it built real class unity…  You’re always hanging out with these guys, and you’re all going through the same head shaving together.”

Here’s how the student newspaper described the haircut ritual:

Freshman Joshua sat in his room working at his computer just like any other weeknight when Chris, a senior rugby player, walked in and said, “Hello.”  Joshua shut down his computer and walked out to find twenty of his teammates waiting in his suite.

“You know what we got to do,” the senior  told him.

"The freshman followed him into the bathroom, took off his shirt and knelt in front of the trashcan. The sound of clippers buzzed in his ear as his teammate took merely seconds to shave his head. With his haircut complete, his teammates took turns writing their names on his chest in permanent marker.  To a casual observer, the haphazardly shaved heads and marked up chests closely resemble hazing, but the rugby players quickly point out it is all in good nature.

“We shave interesting designs into people’s heads,” said Kent, the rugby team captain. “It’s a fun thing and it encourages them onto the team. We don’t make it mandatory. If they say no…that’s fine.”  Chris, the freshman, rubbing the bristly tufts on his shaven head, said he valued the identity and public recognition that came with being formally initiated onto the rugby team.

“You walk around and you know people are looking at you and they think it looks goofy, but they know who you are,” he said. “It identifies the rugby players.”

The team captain said the few freshmen who refused to get their hair cut told him they wished later they had gone through with the initiation.. The captain said some incoming freshman players had even contacted him at home during the summer vacation and were excited about their upcoming in initiation, asking when they would get to have their heads shaved.  “It lets people know that we are a part of the rugby team,” he said. “Sure, it doesn’t look good and we’ve got a bunch of skinheads around here, but we’re rugby players. We’re not pretty.”

The rugby team’s faculty adviser, while cautioning against hazing, agreed that there’s a part he likes about the positive initiation scenario.  “Part of me loves the concept of  rugby players saying ‘we’re unique, we’re different and there is a little bit of a sacrifice to be one of us.”  He commended last year’s captains for joining the freshmen and shaving their heads, too. He said the shaven heads of the two captains  showed a collective sacrifice and a sharing of the embarrassment to be seen as one group."

ANOTHER RUGBY TEAM SHAVES ROOKIE HEADS

Haircut hazing is very big in the rough and tough sport of rugby.  Here's the way a professional rugby team in France.shaved the heads of two new rookies.  They shaved an "H" into one grinning guy's head to stand for "hazing."  And then they required them to wear the mutilated haircuts in public -- no hats allowed -- for several weeks until the official opening of the new season.

Surprisingly, the victims say they actually enjoy having people kid them about the humiliating haircuts – because it’s a great way to strike up conversations with total strangers,  meet new people, and have fun.  

 

A CALIFORNIA SENIOR CITIZEN FONDLY REMEMBERS HIS FOOTBALL INITIATION HAIRCUT WITH GREAT PLEASURE:

In a 2017 letter to the editor of his local newspaper, he says a recent newspaper article critical of the hazing of high school football players “immediately took me back to a 1947 event that involved me and several friends. We were inducted into our high school’s Block Letter Society in a ritual that could only be described as Hazing 101.”   It included forced Mohawk haircuts.

 

But, disagreeing with the anti-hazing critics, he said in his old age he now has delightful memories of his initiation haircut – because it meant acceptance and bonding with the older players.  “That day was truly memorable even though our group of inductees were thoroughly humiliated and subjected to degrading and brutal treatment from our friends because we were found good enough to be included in the Block N Society. The initiation was the realization of a goal we all sought.

 

“Our initiation included a Mohawk haircut that for some of us was just a butcher job. A couple of guys had beautiful Mohawks, one was shaved bald and mine looked as if my barber was drunk.”  Regretfully, he says “the 1947 initiation, to my knowledge, was the last year such haircuts were allowed, probably because the father of one of our initiates was a member of the school board.

 

“Our mothers were in tears,” he said, but the initiates loved their haircuts.  “With our new hairdos we became immediate celebrities at school. Girls who never noticed us paid attention."

 

 

AUSTRALIAN INITIATION HAIRCUTS:  At one dormitory at  this Australian university where incoming freshmen eagerly volunteer for a consensual initiation, upper classmen give the "freshers" matching head shaves.  

They take clippers to the heads of the "freshers," carving a bald swath right down the center of their hair in reverse Mohawks which the "freshers" proudly wear around campus for a week or two.until it grows out, cheerfully enduring the stares..  

Wow!!!  Nice haircuts!!!  

(CONTINUED . . . CLICK HERE TO GO TO "PART TWO -- THE FUN OF INITIATION HAIRCUTS")