After Cheltenham hazing allegations, coaches must ask: Is our locker room safe?

The recent allegations of player hazing in the Cheltenham High School football program have been understandably alarming. Criminal charges have been filed, and the legal process must now determine the facts and accountability for those involved. That process belongs in the courtroom. What belongs in the public conversation is something different.

We should be asking ourselves how a place designed to build confidence, teamwork, discipline, and belonging can instead become a place where fear, humiliation, or violence takes root. The locker room should be one of the safest places in a young athlete’s life. Instead, it is too often a place where cruelty is shrugged off, and silence is learned.

Coaches spend hours teaching student-athletes how to absorb a hit from a linebacker, throw an off-speed pitch, or nail a fadeaway jump shot. But the most dangerous lesson many student-athletes learn isn’t on the field at all: that speaking up costs more than staying quiet.

In more than a decade working in violence prevention through youth sports, especially football, I’ve learned that incidents like this rarely start with a single act. They grow out of a culture: one where harmful behavior gets normalized, warning signs are ignored, and young people learn whose voices count and whose don’t — and that even the most shocking behavior among players or coaches should be hidden, not exposed.

Every school, youth sports league, and athletic organization should see this moment as an opportunity for reflection. The question should not be, “Could this happen here?”

The better question is, “What are we doing every day to make sure it does not?”

Youth sports are among the most influential experiences in a child’s life. Coaches and teammates can become trusted mentors, and every practice, consequence, joke, and decision helps shape a team’s culture. Long before athletes remember the final score, they remember how they were made to feel. Did they feel respected? Protected? Did they believe speaking up would bring support or isolation? Those questions are foundational.

» READ MORE: Cheltenham High’s hazing scandal isn’t the outlier you think it is | Jonathan Zimmerman

Coaches are not simply teaching athletic skills. Whether they intend to or not, they are teaching emotional regulation, accountability, empathy, conflict resolution, and healthy relationships. Young people learn what leadership looks like by watching adults respond under pressure.

Culture is never accidental. It is built intentionally, or it develops on its own. The question is not whether a team has a culture. The question is whether that culture protects its most vulnerable members.

Healthy teams are built on trust, not fear. Players thrive when they know they belong, and when mistakes are treated by coaches as opportunities to teach — and demonstrate the importance of grace and respect — not to intimidate.

This is why violence prevention cannot be separated from athletics. Prevention is not simply responding after a crisis; it is creating environments that reduce harm before it occurs. Young people who feel emotionally safe are more likely to report concerning behavior. Coaches who understand trauma are more likely to recognize when “toughening kids up” has crossed the line into causing harm. These are learned skills.

We require coaches to understand concussion protocols because protecting a young person’s brain matters. Perhaps it is time to place equal value on preparing coaches to recognize unhealthy group dynamics, understand trauma, foster emotional safety, and intentionally build cultures rooted in respect and accountability.

Doing so does not make sports softer. It makes them stronger. There is a profound difference between challenge and humiliation. Challenge builds confidence, resilience, and character. Humiliation weakens trust and teaches young people that acceptance comes at the cost of silence.

» READ MORE: Cheltenham High’s hazing case exposes a loophole in Pennsylvania law. Harrisburg should close it. | Editorial

The overwhelming majority of coaches enter this profession because they genuinely care about young people. Supporting them with training in trauma-informed coaching, youth development, communication, and violence prevention is not an indictment of their character. It is an investment in their influence. The greatest coaches understand that winning games is only part of their job. Their legacy is the people they help shape.

Let what happened in Cheltenham become more than one school’s tragedy. Let it become an opportunity for every athletic program to ask difficult questions: Do our players know they will be protected?

Do they know their voices matter?

Do they know respect is expected regardless of age, talent, or status?

Do they understand that real toughness, real bravery, real strength comes from raising their voices to speak out against wrongdoing — even if it involves the teammates, the coaches, and the sport they love?

Because when the locker room becomes dangerous and threatening, we lose far more than a game. We lose trust. We lose opportunities to teach healthy relationships. We lose one of the most powerful spaces for shaping young lives.

Every season offers another opportunity to create a culture where courage is measured not by staying silent but by protecting one another, where leadership is defined not by power over teammates but by responsibility toward them, and where every young athlete knows they belong and they are valued.

That’s what it means when a locker room feels safe — that’s what it means to coach.

Valencia Peterson is the founder and executive director of Open Door Abuse Awareness Prevention, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit that uses trauma-informed coaching and youth sports as a strategy for violence prevention. She has trained coaches and youth-serving professionals for more than a decade.