Lisbon High School football players hold a player-led practice at the school Friday after the school suspended the team’s activities until further notice due to a investigation into hazing at the school. Haley Jones/Sun Journal

LISBON — The Lisbon School Department has suspended its football coaches and all team activities indefinitely in the wake of a police investigation into an alleged hazing incident.

Superintendent Richard Green said in an email Friday that the football team will not practice or play games “pending further investigation,” and Lisbon forfeited its Friday night game against Mountain Valley High School in Rumford.

“This is the result of an extensive internal investigation that the Lisbon Police has been involved with,” Green wrote in email.

Around 5 p.m. Friday, multiple players and parents gathered behind the football field on the team’s grass practice field for a self-organized practice.

Sophomore Devin Weeks said the team decided together and on their own to organize the practice, without administration or coaches present. Several parents also gathered to cheer on the team and share reactions to the news.

“We all wanted to be out here because we love football,” Weeks said. “We love being here playing this sport and they might not let us do it anymore.”

Amelia Tuplin is the mother to a sophomore and a junior on the team: Jeff Tuplin and Jacoby Tuplin. She also works for the Lisbon school system, and was the bus driver scheduled to take the team to Mountain Valley on Friday for the game.

“Today, (some of) the boys were notified by the athletic director (Chris Spaulding) and a Lisbon SRO officer,” Amelia Tuplin said. “They were pulled from class just before the end of the day, and they were told that today’s game would be a forfeit and nothing else. This was just before the bell for them to get let out.”

Amelia Tuplin added that “only a small number of players were notified,” and not the team as a whole. There were also no coaches present during the conversation between Spaulding, students and the Lisbon SRO, she said, and parents were notified shortly after that all football activities were “suspended temporarily.”

“The kids got let out of school, the door to the locker room was locked and they had no access to their gear,” Amelia Tuplin said. “A lot of them didn’t have rides home, parents weren’t even notified yet, the public wasn’t notified yet, and a generic email went out shortly after.

“We had kids crying, they had no rides home and didn’t know what was happening. There’s been no communication — parents don’t know what’s happening, coaches have been left in the dark and they don’t know what’s happening.”

Freshman Carson Savoy said he’s heard “multiple different types of stories,” about the incident in question, but said he does not know what to believe.

“I’m pretty sure most of it is just rumors, and I hope all of it will fizz away so we can get back to playing football and to how things used to be,” Savoy said. “There’s a lot of sadness, mad, curious; people are annoyed and just looking for answers.”

Savoy said most of the players have been able to talk with Lisbon football coaches, but are no longer in contact. The team heard the game was being suspended at about 1:15 p.m., when school officials called the players into the auditorium to make the announcement about the game forfeit, but nothing else.

Weeks added that the team was told questions were not allowed, and no further information was available. He also only heard the coaches were suspended from fellow teammates at the impromptu practice around 5 p.m. Friday.

Lisbon High School football players hold a player-led practice at the school Friday after the school suspended the team’s activities until further notice due to a investigation into hazing at the school. Haley Jones/Sun Journal

The Lisbon Police Department confirmed to the Sun Journal that it is investing an alleged hazing incident “involving multiple people.”

“It’s still an active investigation that we’re working closely with the Lisbon School Department on,” Lisbon police Lt. Jeff Picard said. “There’s really not much else I can share at this time.”

Picard declined to provide more specifics of the investigation.

“All I know, or that I can tell you is that it involves juveniles, and I don’t have any other information that we can share at this time,” Picard said.

Amelia Tuplin said communication with the school since the announcement has been sparse, and players were still unable to access the locker room to retrieve their personal belongings.

“Everything’s going directly to voicemail, so we’ve been told to direct all of our questions to the superintendent,” Tuplin said. “The (athletic director) is not taking any questions.”

For the parents present at Friday’s makeshift practice, Tuplin said the emotions among players and parents included disappointment and frustration.

“Our frustration isn’t with our coaching staff, we support them 100 percent; our players, our athletes, we all stand behind our coaches and our program,” Tuplin said. “It’s a lack of communication from the administration, right from our principal, our athletic director, and Dr. Richard Green, our superintendent. He (Green) needs to step up and communicate with us and should have done it at the time.”

According to Amelia Tuplin, the incident in question occurred on personal property in July, not during a school-sanctioned practice or event. She said she did not know any specific details about what occurred, but that it involved athletes from other sports besides football. However, she said the football team was the only team facing suspension.

“I think that they don’t care about the students and only care about their reputation and their jobs,” Weeks said of the administration and district staff.

By forfeiting the game against Mountain Valley, Lisbon faces possible disciplinary action by the Maine Principals’ Association, relative to a rule in the MPA handbook under “non-completion of a season.”

That rule states that if a school does not complete its submitted schedule, it “will be prohibited” from varsity competition for the next two seasons.

Lisbon is the second Maine high school football program that suspended or canceled team activities in the wake of a hazing investigation.

In October 2021, Brunswick canceled the rest of the varsity football team’s season and fired longtime coach Dan Cooper in the wake of its investigation into alleged hazing at a preseason team retreat.

“We’ve all been left in the dark. There has been no communication in regards to how this forfeit will jeopardize us for the rest of our season, or next season, if we’ll have to petition,” Tuplin said. “We don’t know, we have nothing, we know nothing. There has been zero communication.”