Lisbon High football team faces 2-year varsity ban after forfeiting final 4 games of season

This season the Lisbon High School football team has had to forfeit the last four games as a result of an ongoing investigation into hazing practices; as a result of the foregoing the football team is nowanship for two years from varsity football.

Lisbon High School’s hopes of winning Friday’s home game against Oak Hill High School, the lone remaining game on its schedule, died when Superintendent of Schools Richard Green said it will be a forfeit.

Lisbon High School has halted all football related activities as the school deals with the hazing investigation that began Oct. 4.

Lisbon High has previously defaulted on football games to Mountain Valley High School on October 4; Freeport High School on October 11; and Medomak Valley High School on October 19.

They were both per the Maine Principals’ Association Handbook, Appendix Z, which states that a school that submits a game schedule in Heal Point or Crabtree sports for a specific sport and does not complete that schedule “will be prohibited from participating in varsity competition leading to postseason play in that sport for the following two years after that season.”

Lisbon High School could appeal the ban by submitting an application for special consideration to the MPA Interscholastic Management Committee.

The hazing affair which lead to suspension of Lisbon High School football activities is one of the two affairs under probe at the town.

Green said Lisbon School Department and the Portland-based law firm Drummond Woodsum are probing another hazing incident that is different from one that police were investigating. Green pointed an important fact that two hazing instances occurred at different moments, but they both involved Lisbon High School football players.

In an Oct. 7 letter to students, staff, parents and guardians, Green stated that the Lisbon School Department would contract with an outside agency to investigate the high school hazing matter. Acquiring damage control later became Drummond Woodsum that was contracted by the Brunswick School Department to probe a hazing stunt that precipitated the termination of Brunswick High School football team season in 2021.

The investigation conducted by Lisbon School Department and Drummond Woodsum has led to seven students shaving been expelled from the football team list due to hazing.

Green said Monday that during this period, no coaches have been fired or suspended over hazing.

Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee told Maine’s Total Coverage on Wednesday, October 16 that his department forwarded the hazing investigation it was conducting to the Androscoggin County District Attorney Office.

The next day Neil McLean Jr District Attorney in charge of the case also an anchor on Maine’s Total Coverage confirmed that his office had received the report from the Lisbon Police Department.

However, at this time we are unable to offer any additional information on any matters. It is very dicey to say when the decision will be made because then we will not have exhausted all that we should have done when reviewing this matter to justification, McLean said in a statement.

McGee has made the statement to Maine’s Total Coverage that Lisbon Police Department had no information on the hazing issue that was under investigation by Lisbon School Department and Drummond Woodsum.

However, in Lisbon School Department interview, Green said that they had not been informed of any investigation on hazing by the Lisbon Police Department.