What Happened Friday Night in Swampscott?

There’s ”an incident” under investigation in Swampscott. It happened Friday night at Blocksidge Field; there were allegedly Swampscott High School football players involved and now the Oct. 1 freshman football game and the Oct. 3 varsity football game have been canceled.

And that’s about all school officials and police will say.

Students and parents, however, haven’t been shy about talking to media.

WCVB reported that a parent who attended a closed meeting among some parents, students and school officials Tuesday night said police arrived at a bonfire at Blocksidge Field Friday night to find “naked football players doing jumping jacks and pushups.”

Another person interviewed by WCVB said he didn’t ”think it was a big deal” because “it’s tradition and traditions are sometimes a little silly.”

And even within the Patch comment stream, several folks have piped up to say that this kind of thing has gone on for years.

“It has been happening in the same place for more than 20 years,” commenter Enderby said on Patch. Enderby also indicated that he/she attended Tuesday night’s meeting among students, parents and school administrators. Like was reported by WCVB, Enderby wrote that at least a few parents at that meeting indicated their children voluntarily participated in whatever took place Friday.

>>> What do you think? Is what happened Friday harmless tradition or ”hazing”?