The descriptions of hazing at Northwestern are now sufficiently voluminous to understand that something was deeply twisted in the DNA of a program that former head coach Pat Fitzgerald now claims to know nothing about.
That point is beyond dispute. Descriptions of what happened across years in the Northwestern locker room are so horrific − the forced acts of nudity, the dry humping as punishment, the entire gamut of sexualized rituals − that one unnamed former player from the last decade told The Athletic, “I knew this day would come. If someone were to run an investigation on us, we are (expletive).”
Moving forward for Northwestern, the primary focus of the scandal is largely going to be on who else in a position of authority gets hit by the shrapnel and who ends up getting paid as a result of multiple lawsuits that were filed last week.
But there’s a larger question that needs to be reckoned with as we learn more about what happened: Was Northwestern a one-off, or are there echoes of that so-called culture in locker rooms across the country that could give rise to more whistleblowers and similarly disturbing stories of abuse?
If so, this is the time to speak up − because anything that even borders on the horror show that Northwestern football players were subjected to has no place in college football.
“All of us were placed into a culture where sexual assault was rampant as a hazing practice,” former Northwestern running back Warren Miles-Long said at a news conference alongside civil rights attorney Ben Crump last week. “We had no reference point to know if this was a college football thing or a uniquely Northwestern thing.”
It’s something everyone in college sports should be asking themselves as teams open training camp in the next couple weeks.
Because the scary part about what happened at Northwestern is that it wasn’t likely a result of some systemic plan but rather a set of initiation traditions that were handed down from class to class and at some point just became accepted as part of what you do when you join the program.
You would think in 2023 that it would never go beyond the innocent stuff like having freshmen pick up the shoulder pads or buy donuts for the seniors. But at Northwestern, there were clearly lines crossed when new players were asked/told/coerced into doing a variety things in the nude or simulated male-on-male sex acts or what multiple players have described a “car wash” where the offensive linemen would line up outside the showers and force players to squeeze through their soaped-up naked bodies.
“All of it was humiliating,” said Lloyd Yates, a former Northwestern quarterback who has come forward publicly. “It’s something as an athlete that we hear about. We don’t know what it looks like, but you say, ‘It’s not going to happen to me. I’m going to fight back.’ But when it happens, it’s uncontrollable. You’re dominated by the culture, and on top of that, performing acts while being nude is normalized. We thought this was part of playing college football, and we wanted to fit in and earn trust and respect. And if you went against that, you were labeled and it warranted further abuse.”
That’s how it festers. That’s how it takes hold. When you place 17- and 18-year olds into a new environment where their No. 1 goal is to be accepted and fit in alongside players who have been in the program for years, they will largely do what their peers tell them to do even if it embarrasses them or seems wrong.
We innately know that just from being around sports − especially sports like football where the team dynamic is so complex − but until these stories came out of Northwestern, that kind of hazing seemed like a vestige of a long-past era. It’s hard to fathom why young men would find value in rituals that are so cruel and degrading, but while so much of the criticism has landed on Northwestern, the reality is that hundreds of former players were part of perpetuating this disgusting, broken culture.
Northwestern players are supposed to represent some of the best and brightest people playing college sports. If their sense of what’s funny or what’s appropriate was that broken, every coach in the country should have some questions about what’s been going on in their own program or else they risk becoming the next Fitzgerald.
Tom Carnifax, a Northwestern slot back from 2016-19, said last week he was speaking up “not to fix my trauma, but to stop trauma from occurring in the future, … I spent the last four years hating myself and what I went through here. This is an opportunity to make a difference so I took it.”
Players like Carnifax who are now talking about their experiences were too afraid in the moment to stand up to the hazing because of what it might mean to their playing time, their scholarship, their standing within the locker room.
Hopefully the continued light being shined on Northwestern can change that trajectory. This kind of hazing is disgusting, it’s wrong and it has no place in college football − full stop. Hopefully Northwestern was this uniquely awful place and players at other schools haven’t been subjected to the same type of humiliation and abuse. But common sense says that Northwestern isn’t alone.
There’s never been a better time to talk about that. And if you’re a coach or administrator beginning fall camp, the moment is now to put a stop to it.
