Earlier this week, the University of Delaware suspended the school’s club rugby team for five years after an out-of-control party at which attendees were roaming the streets, climbing on cars, and cheering from rooftops.
Sophomore rugby team member, Thomas Abram, said a rugby team member was in contact with I’m Shmacked (a website featuring series of videos shot at college campuses) representatives, who paid the house member to host the party. The representatives for the company essentially pay students to host wild parties and film them to go up on YouTube. I’m Shmacked has caused quite some chaos, with a riot at University of Delaware, and six students in the hospital a few days later after a party near the University of Rhode Island, associated with the site.
Police say when they arrived at the home, which is informally referred to as the rugby house at 11:30, they found more than a thousand people. Police report five arrests, two of them being members of the rugby team and one being the cameraman for I’m Shmacked. The University of Delaware itself has not said anything about punishing individual students, but decided it needed to come down hard on the rugby team by suspending it for five years – a punishment the team members call a “death penalty.”
The team of over 70 members isn’t allowed to hold practices or competitions until the spring semester of 2018. The team is appealing the suspension, and the university is required to respond by Friday. “All we can do is appeal and hope for the best,” Abram said. “Five years means everyone on the team is done.”
University of Delaware president Patrick T. Harker, however, takes the issue more seriously, calling the mayhem an “embarrassing, dangerous and costly episode,” and warned the students to “make no mistake – this behavior will not be tolerated at the University of Delaware.”