Speculations are circulating following the circumstances that caused Tamaqua to forfeit its District 11 Class 3A football semifinal game against North Schuylkill over the weekend.

Tamaqua superintendent Ray Kinder posted a letter on the district website Monday, which said that members of the Tamaqua area administration, school police force and Tamaqua police have been conducting an investigation into “an incident involving members of the school’s football team.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Tamaqua School Board President Larry Wittig labeled it as a hazing incident, “for lack of a better term,” he said.

“We are going to push this. This is coming from me now, because the school board didn’t make an official proclamation, but I feel very comfortable that everybody is going to be behind this. We are going to push this as far as it will go,” Wittig said.

According to Wittig, the incident happened around 6:30 p.m. last Thursday.

“In terms of expediency of addressing the alleged issue, by 11 p.m. that night, there was a meeting between police, administration and the parents.”

Wittig added that interviews were conducted on Friday, Saturday and Monday.

“If there are criminal charges in the form of misdemeanors, aggravated assault, whatever it is, they will be pushed. There will be no compromise on our side. The punishment for a Level 4 offense, which in this case, it would probably be a Level 4 offense ­­­­- which the school board has the authority to have hearings on - and I don’t want to get ahead of myself here - but if that occurs, we will exercise our discretion to the fullest extent. We are not going to sweep this under the carpet.

“And anyone who knows us or would even suggest that. … it’s frustrating, because we’ve been very predictable in our reaction about covering anything up.”

On Monday, Tamaqua police said the investigation is ongoing. Further details regarding the incident have not been released at this time.

The Tamaqua school board is set to have a regularly scheduled workshop committee meeting on Tuesday night at 7 p.m.