Former Northwestern football players go public with claims of a ‘culture’ of hazing, abuse

Lawyers representing nearly 20 Northwestern football players on Wednesday claimed that alleged hazing of athletes at the school was so widespread that coaching staff and school officials must have known about the abuse.

At a news conference at a downtown hotel, civil rights attorney Ben Crump — who has represented the families of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery in litigation — stood with a team of attorneys and four of some 15 former Northwestern football players that have retained his firm.

Across town, attorney Pat Salvi held a news conference announcing the second lawsuit in what could be a flood of litigation against one of the Midwest’s most esteemed universities.

Crump said his clients have yet to file a lawsuit and that he has fielded calls from 50 former NU football players, as well as athletes from the school’s baseball and softball teams. The alleged hazing dates back to at least 2013, Crump said. The unnamed player in the lawsuit was at the school from 2018 until last year.

Former NU quarterback Lloyd Yates, who starred at Oak Park-River Forest High School and whose grandfather, father and older brother all attended NU, said sexualized hazing was commonplace. Those who came forward risked losing playing time or other retaliation, and those who kept quiet felt intense pressure to fit in with teammates despite the fear and trauma the abuse created.

“No teammate I knew liked hazing,” Yates said. “We were all victims, no matter what our role was at the time, but the culture was so strong we felt we had to go with it. There was a code of silence that seemed insurmountable to overcome.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Speaking to reporters, attorney Parker Stinar, who is representing two former players identified as “John Does” in the first two lawsuits filed to date against Northwestern, said former Wildcats head coach Patrick Fitzgerald, who was fired last week after 17 years as a coach in Evanston and four years as a standout linebacker, must have known about the hazing.

“The head football coach knows about everything that happens with his football program,” Stinar said.

“And this wasn’t just one single event. We’re talking about probably hundreds, if not thousands of events of abuse, harassment or sexual assault during his tenure,” he said.

The first lawsuit was filed Tuesday by an anonymous former player, the week after Fitzgerald was fired, after a university investigation found allegations of hazing and racial discrimination by 11 current or former players. Complaints, the investigation found, were “largely supported by the evidence.” A second lawsuit was filed by “John Doe 2” on Wednesday by the Salvi law firm. Its allegations were largely similar to the first lawsuit.

The lawsuits describe a hazing activity known as “running,” which consisted of “8-10 upperclassmen, dressed in masks, holding down a player, and dry humping the player in a dark locker room.”

The “running” ritual was first detailed by the student newspaper The Daily Northwestern. The lawsuit also added allegations of other forms of hazing, where players were forced to strip naked and bear crawl in front of the team, the lawsuit alleges. Some players were forced to slingshot themselves across the floor with exercise bands, the lawsuit states.

In a hazing ritual called “the carwash,” naked players lined up and spun around the entrance of the showers, “so that all freshman players were forced to rub up against the line of men to get to their showers,” the lawsuit states. Sometimes players sprayed “freshman as they walked through the tunnel of naked men,” the suit states.

In the “Gatorade shake challenge,” freshman players were forced to drink as many Gatorade shakes as possible during a 10-minute period as the team watched, the lawsuit states.

If players declined to participate, they’d be threatened to be “run,” the suit states.

The lawsuit alleges Fitzgerald “took part in the harassment, hazing, bullying, assault, and/or abuse of athletes” without offering more detail.

Stinar and Salvi said they have spoken with another football player on the team and will be filing a separate lawsuit Wednesday with similar allegations.

At least a half-dozen other players have retained lawyers. Crump and co-counsel Steve Levin said they still are gathering evidence and fielding calls from dozens more players, including athletes on the Northwestern softball and baseball teams.

Owen Ziliak/Sun-Times

Fitzgerald’s attorney, Dan Webb, has ripped the lawsuit for failing to cite “any specific facts or evidence.” Tuesday night, Webb said that “we will aggressively defend against these allegations with facts and evidence.”

Salvi and Stinar alleged the culture of abuse permeated the school’s entire athletic department, including the baseball, softball, volleyball and cheerleader programs.

“This is an institution that permitted this behavior: sexual harassment, sexual assault, racial discrimination. This is an athletic program that permitted it. And this is a school that allowed it,” Stinar said.

Most of the attention has been on the fallout from the investigation of abuse into the football team, but a simultaneous university investigation found baseball coach Jim Foster also engaged in abuse and bullying behavior. The university fired Foster on July 13 after the investigation came to light. Kate Drohan, coach of the Wildcat softball team since 2002, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The attorneys questioned the university leadership’s transparency and called on it to release the full, unedited investigation.

They alleged the law firm retained by the university to investigate the abuse, ArentFox Schiff LLP, was close to the school’s general counsel.

Publicly, the school has released only a summary of the investigation. It revealed that a student-athlete anonymously complained of hazing in the university’s football program on Nov. 30, 2022. The investigation into that complaint found “participation in or knowledge of the hazing activities was widespread across football players.” 

In response to the investigation, the university placed Fitzgerald on a two-week suspension without pay and discontinued Northwestern’s football training camp in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

A day later, The Daily Northwestern published an article quoting an anonymous student-football player who detailed allegations of the football team’s hazing traditions.

That same day, Northwestern University President Michael Schill released a statement placing blame on Fitzgerald. Schill fired Fitzgerald two days later.

The players working with Crump cited several dynamics that instilled a culture of silence around the hazing. Yates noted that many of his teammates were first-generation college students who depended on their scholarships to pay for an education from an elite university.

Tom Carnifax, a linebacker who was on the Wildcats roster from 2016 to 2019, said a culture that prized toughness, and the fact athletes until recently had to wait out a full year if they transferred to another school, provided powerful incentives to endure the abuse. Today, Carnifax said he would advise college athletes that they are not alone, and they can stand up for themselves.

“We have the ability to speak up,” Carnifax said, adding that if coaches or school officials don’t act, “just transfer to a program that values you better.”

“I sat there and took it, and I’m dealing with it,” he said. “Speak up and move on to another program. I spent the last four years hating myself, and this is my opportunity to possibly make a difference.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times