Kingfisher hazing lawsuit settles for $5 million after head football coach charged

A federal lawsuit over hazing and bullying inside the Kingfisher High School football program is being settled for $5 million.

The agreement comes one month after head coach Jeff Myers was charged with child neglect and former coach Micah Nall was charged with child abuse.

A former player, Mason Mecklenburg, sued Kingfisher Public Schools, the head coach and other coaches in 2021 after graduating. He called what he endured, particularly being whipped naked in the showers with wet knotted towels, as "almost torture."

"For me, it was a lot of physical and mental abuse from all angles," Mecklenburg, now 21, testified in a deposition for the case.

A jury trial in the civil case had been set to begin Dec. 5 in Oklahoma City federal court.

The Kingfisher school board voted to settle the case at a special meeting Monday. Superintendent David Glover revealed it was for $5 million even though the paperwork finalizing the agreement has not been signed.

"It was decided that the risk to our school system and to our patrons was too great to gamble on a jury trial that our attorneys just did not think we could win," Glover told the Kingfisher Times & Free Press. “Our settlement is in no way an admission of liability."

He also told teachers in an email about the settlement. "It is time to move forward!!" he wrote.

Abuse from teammates and coaches alleged in original lawsuit against Kingfisher High School

Mecklenburg was beaten with wet towels, forced into locker room fights, shocked with a stun gun, shot with paintballs, forced to wear a urine-soaked helmet, verbally abused by coaches, hit from behind at practice and sexually assaulted, his attorneys alleged in the lawsuit.

Some witnesses said he was singled out because he was the "rich kid."

In his deposition in July, he described the sexual assault as being held down on the locker room floor while a player squatted naked on his face. "I just remember them laughing and him giving me that terrible smirk and then him doing it," Mecklenburg said

Among the key evidence in both the civil case and the criminal cases is a 2018 cellphone video of two freshmen boxing in the locker room while teammates cheer.

Agents with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation found 14 former players and one manager who knew about, watched or participated in what was known as "The Ring," according to a court affidavit.

"'The Ring' was described (as) where football players wrestled or boxed to settle differences that they had on the field," an OSBI agent wrote.

Mecklenburg is now a student at Oklahoma State University. He was represented by Oklahoma City attorney Cameron Spradling and a prominent law firm based in Texas.

His attorneys confirmed Thursday an agreement in principle has been reached "that will allow everyone involved to move forward."

"Final documents are being prepared and will be filed with the court shortly," they said.

Myers' attorney called the settlement "distressing and unfortunate."

"It sets a precedent for individuals to use social and news media as a conduit to present false information as a means of pressuring and intimidating an organization to settle," attorney Joe White said.

"My client and the citizens of Kingfisher are the true victims here," White said. "My client will never get a chance to clear his name in a court of law where social media clickbait is countered by actual evidence."

Myers will no longer coach at Kingfisher, only teach, "as I understand it," the attorney said.

The settlement may be one of the largest ever in a case over school hazing. The Kingfisher school board last year decided against settling the case for $1.5 million.

Public Justice, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization, tracks jury verdicts and settlements in harassment and bullying cases filed against school districts in federal and state courts throughout the country. It reported in August that the largest previous settlement in cases where the focus was bullying rather than sexual assault also was for $5 million. In that 2016 Connecticut case, the victim died of suicide.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma high school football hazing lawsuit settling for $5 million