Former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates shared new details on Tuesday about the hazing and sexual abuse scandal within the Wildcats football program.
Yates told the Chicago Tribune he experienced sexualized and training camp hazing described as a “very degrading, dehumanizing, embarrassing act.” He is the first Northwestern player to publicly open up after an independent review by the school into alleged hazing led to the firing of football coach Pat Fitzgerald earlier this month.
Yates, who graduated from Northwestern in 2018, said the alleged assaults left him with nightmares and anxiety. His time with the program has been overshadowed by degrading and sexually abusive hazing.
As a result, Yates hasn’t watched a football game in years.
“I was conditioned to think this stuff is normal, and this was what goes on in college football, this is what goes on in these locker rooms,” he said. “And I think Northwestern has a bit of work to do to make things right, and make sure that this culture doesn’t exist.”
The testimony is at the forefront of a lawsuit led by attorneys Ben Crump and Steve Levin against the school. The lawsuit against Northwestern will “seek an end to this sort of behavior, and that will seek compensatory and potentially punitive damages” for the former players, Levin told the Tribune.
Northwestern has not commented on the potential suit, according to the Tribune, pointing to a policy about speaking on pending litigation.
It’s the most recent development in a hazing scandal at Northwestern that resulted in the firing of Fitzgerald. But, even though Fitzgerald was fired, Yates legal team said the culture of hazing is more than just one person.
“This is not a case about an individual coach,” Levin told the Tribune. “… This is an institutional problem [that we’re] approaching as an institutional problem that we believe many people either knew about or should have known about.”
Prior to beginning his first day at Northwestern’s training camp, Yates said he already heard “horror stories” regarding treatment. He emphasized that as 17- or 18-year-old freshmen, the players are just trying to fit in, therefore they didn’t believe the stories were true or would happen to them.
“But, you know, it happened to me, and it happened to a lot of guys within the culture,” Yates said.
He offered extensive details on common training camp hazing. Players would try to prevent the hazing by locking or barricading their doors, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop what Yates called “ambushes.”
“We would get ambushed by you know, 10 different guys, and then they would come hold you down,” he said. “They would put you in the doggy-style position and proceed to dry-hump you. Guys would take turns, and it’s just a very degrading, dehumanizing, embarrassing act.”
There were other examples of sexual hazing too.
Yates described a “ritual” before practice where teammates would force players perform naked in front of everybody in the locker room. Yates participated in the hazing, completing a center-quarterback exchange completely naked as a freshman quarterback.
“So obviously, that experience before I had to go on the field and practice with my teammates, was very uncomfortable … it’s just humiliating,” Yates said.
There’s also “running,” a practice used to punish players for mistakes.
Yates’ teammates once believed that he told a coach that the team was partying late the night before. As a result, the coach made his teammates do extra work in the weight room, leading to Yates being “ran by [his] teammates” when he went back to the locker room.
Crump and Levin told the Tribune that other clients confirmed the pattern of hazing. It’s unclear when the attorneys will file their lawsuit against the school, but Yates told the Tribune that by coming forward, he hopes others will feel comfortable about doing the same.
