The brutal secret of school sport initiations

Hazing rituals have long been a brutal secret among high school and college sport teams. But in the #MeToo era, can teenage victims shatter the code of silence?

*This story includes some graphic descriptions of sexual assault*

When Allison Brookman arrived at Reed Custer High School to pick up her 14-year-old son Anthony from American football camp, she knew something was wrong.

"You can kind of tell when your kid is hurt or sad," she told the BBC.

"When I pulled up, I saw that same look in his face, that he was hurt."

After some needling from his mother, he itted he had just been "jumped" by four senior football players.

But it wasn't until she took him to hospital to have his injuries examined that she heard what had really happened - that Anthony had been beaten up and sexually assaulted by of the team as part of a violent hazing ritual.

"The first guy who slapped me twice and knocked me down, he kicked me in my right side on my ribs," Anthony told CBS in an interview.

"While the fourth one took my shorts off and they pulled my legs up so that he could get his finger to my, you know, body part."

Allison says when they heard this in the hospital examining room, she and her husband were stricken with horror.

"They didn't just beat you up, they tried fondling you":[]}