Members of Penn State's wrestling team were questioned by officials in the university's Office of Judicial Affairs yesterday about an alleged hazing incident involving the team, the office's director confirmed.

The director, Joe Puzycki, would not say which wrestlers were questioned yesterday or how many were present for questioning. He said he expected the office to finish conducting interviews of all the wrestlers involved by the end of next week.

Photos that surfaced Tuesday night spurred athletic administrators to launch an investigation of the team, according to a statement released Wednesday by Athletic Director Tim Curley.

The photos, some of which depict men stripped down to jock straps with 40-oz. beer bottles duct-taped to each of their hands, were sent in an e-mail by an anti-hazing activist to coach Troy Sunderland and The Daily Collegian.

Curley answered questions yesterday about the alleged hazing at a press conference, which he attended to discuss the resignation of Penn State women's basketball coach Rene Portland.

"This particular area of hazing has been a national concern that has really come to light recently with the Internet and some of the social networking sites that are out there," Curley said. The photos had originally appeared at an account on the popular photo-hosting site Webshots.com. The account has since been removed.

Sophomore wrestler Jason Lapham said he thinks the wrestlers pictured in the photos were the ones sent to Judicial Affairs. He said the coaches have been able to identify individual wrestlers in the photographs.

Lapham said the coaches addressed the team at practice yesterday morning about the incident. He said the coaches were "upset about it."

"It wasn't hazing," Lapham said. "Hazing is when someone forces you to do something you don't want to do."

Lapham said he and two other wrestlers, Dan Vallimont and Mike Ward, did not attend the "theme party," because they did not want to participate in the planned activities, such as wearing jock straps. All three were freshmen at the time.

Sunderland was reached by phone yesterday evening but refused to say which wrestlers were questioned by judicial affairs.

Phil Davis, a junior on the wrestling team, said the team's morale is "pretty bad right now."

"We didn't quite finish like we wanted to at the national tournament, and something

from the past came back to haunt us," Davis said. "It's not really a good time."