The suspended athletes say they’ve been wrongfully accused of hazing and racially discriminated against, claiming 10 white football players are also under investigation for hazing, yet they are still allowed to attend school.

 Their lawyer believes the football players were used as pawns in a bigger fight to get rid of the coach.

“This had nothing to do with hazing. This had everything to do with (De La Salle President) John Knight trying to get rid of the head football coach,” said attorney Paul Addis, who filed a defamation, libel and discrimination lawsuit Monday on behalf of the three suspended athletes.

The three minority football players were suspended in November on accusations of holding a younger player facedown on the locker room floor while one of them sexually taunted and prodded him with a broomstick. There was no penetration.

The students claim they are innocent, that their graduation and college educations are at stake, and that the school has kept their families in the dark about their suspensions.

About four hours after the lawsuit was filed, Warren De La Salle fired head football coach Mike Giannone, who led the powerhouse Pilots to two state championships in his three years on the job.

De La Salle offered no specifics on Giannone’s termination, saying only: “We can only confirm that Giannone is no longer with De La Salle.”

De La Salle also declined comment on the students’ lawsuit, citing policy not to comment on pending litigation. But it stressed that the “safety, health and education” of students is the “top priority, ” and that hazing is a serious issue.

“Our hearts and prayers are with those impacted by the hazing, particularly the students who were victimized and their families,” De La Salle said in a statement Monday.  “We are confident we will grow from this experience and continue to build a strong school and, most importantly, strong young men whose futures will reflect the principles on which De La Salle was founded — faith, character, intellect and morality.”

Giannone, who was hired by the all-boys Catholic school in 2016, could not be reached for comment. He was on paid administrative leave since shortly after the hazing allegations broke.

Giannone came to De La Salle in 2016 after building Macomb Dakota into Macomb County’s No. 1 program. In 18 seasons at Dakota, Giannone had a 158-51 record, and his teams won the Division 1 state championship in 2006 and 2007.

His reputation followed him to De La Salle, where he won two state championships in three years.

In 2017, Giannone was named the Free Press All-State Dream Team coach of the year.

‘They know nothing’

According to police, the three suspended players and a dozen of their teammates are not cooperating. Neither is the alleged victim, they said, noting the teen boy has refused to talk and doesn’t want charges brought. 

But while the police deal with silence, the new lawsuit offers insight into the investigation and interrogation that the accused say they’ve been subjected to. According to the lawsuit, here is what the three students and their families have been dealing with:

On Nov. 4, three football players were suspended, though their parents were never given details as to why. They were only told in a telephone call that their sons’  names were “mentioned in an investigation,” but nothing else, the suit claims.

Then came pressure for the accused to talk, the suit states.

During the suspension, the administration sent the three accused athletes a list of 10 white football players, and asked them to confirm that they were all involved in hazing, the lawsuit claims. The list of names was sent by text, to the parents of the accused.

But the students “refused to be blackmailed into returning to school,” the lawsuit claims.

“They have been singled out by this administration as the only ones involved in what President Knight has declared to be systemic, deep-rooted activity. Yet my three are the only ones being proclaimed the poster child for it? That’s flatly wrong,” said Addis, the lawyer who is representing the three suspended students and their families.

Addis, a 1993 De La Salle graduate who also played football there, said he doesn’t believe that hazing is deep-rooted at De La Salle, as administrators have claimed.

“If there’s this pervasive thing going on, there would be video. If this is a deep-rooted systemic problem, why isn’t  there anything out there? It’s just unbelievable, unconscionable,” Addis said of the treatment of his clients.

When asked why the three accused students refused to implicate the 10 white students in the hazing scandal, Addis said:

“They were appalled by the insinuation that they would know something, They know nothing,” Addis said, adding his clients cooperated in an independent investigation launched by the school and denied pinning anyone to a floor and prodding them with a broom.

 “They have flatly denied it to the independent investigator. We don’t even know who the (alleged victim)  is,” Addis said. “This has got me so furious. To be treated this way by this administration is just beyond my comprehension.”

Among the lawsuit’s allegations is that President Knight pushed a false narrative  in claiming that hazing was a pervasive and deep-rooted problem at De La Salle — so serious that he had no choice but to cancel the team’s season and forfeit the playoffs.

“John Knight has been able to control this narrative … and he’s doing it on the backs of my kids. And it’s gotta stop,”  Addis said.

Knight was not available for comment, though he has previously defended his decision to forfeit the playoffs, saying he didn’t want the team to play the game “under this cloud and under these troubling issues.” 

“What makes this decision heart-wrenching,” Knight said at the time, “is that we are aware of the fact that there are young men who are suffering and were not involved in this situation.” Knight previously said.

The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of monetary damages from De La Salle, and aims to get the students reinstated. 

Police request charges

Giannone has kept quiet since the hazing allegations surfaced in late October, when the school abruptly ended the football team’s season on the eve of playoffs. School officials turned the case over to Warren Police, which has requested that assault and battery charges be filed against the three accused students.

According to police, about 65 people have been interviewed since the allegations surfaced, including 59 players and six school officials, including coaches. 

Warren Police Commissioner Bill Dwyer said that Giannone “indicated he had no knowledge whatsoever about the incident and that he wouldn’t tolerate it.”

Meanwhile, St. Clair County Prosecutor Michael Wendling is expected to make a decision soon as to whether to charge the three accused football players. He told the Free Press last month that the suspects could be still be charged, even if the victim won’t talk. 

“That is not a determining factor for our office going forward,” Wendling has previously said. “If there’s a crime and we can prove it, and we feel that charges are justified, we will go forward.”

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com

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