Standing with other former Northwestern athletes, former Northwestern football player Simba Short speaks during a press conference addressing widespread hazing accusations at Northwestern University Wednesday, July 19, 2023, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
By Ralph D. Russo
Georgia coach Kirby Smart remembers having his head shaved when he was a freshman football player at his alma mater back in the mid-1990s and busing tables after team meals.
Older players putting the newbies in their place by hazing remains ingrained in team sports at all levels in the United States. That is not the way Smart wants to run the Bulldogs, who have won two straight national championships.
“Now, those freshmen, the guys we sign, they have to play,” Smart said this week at Southeastern Conference media days. “So when you create this separation of, they have to do this and they have to do that, they’re not ready to play. They’re like a different team.”
While major college sports programs have become multimillion-dollar, high-stakes businesses run more like professional teams, ritualistic hazing remains a problematic tradition within them. School rules forbidding hazing, more than 40 state laws against it and horror story after horror story have not stopped it.
“I think it’s happening more often than people realize and we see it making the headlines around what’s happening in high school locker rooms,” said Elizabeth Allan, a professor at the University of Maine who has studied hazing on campus. “And so students are coming to college often having experienced hazing in their high school athletics programs.”
Northwestern fired longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald after a university investigation found allegations of hazing by 11 current or former players, including “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature.” Fitzgerald, who was reportedly making more than $5 million per year, was let go after he was initially given a two-week suspension.
"You’re overpowered, you’re dominated by the culture," said Lloyd Yates, a member of the Northwestern football team from 2015-17.
Allan said studies have shown about half of all students report experiencing some type of hazing in high school. She said hazing can be found wherever a large group is trying to establish a hierarchy.
“If you understand hazing as a form of an abuse of power, then you can see how in those environments or group situations where people are jockeying for power or trying to enforce some kind of hierarchies, hazing is an easy way to kind of make clear who’s got the power,” she said.
She added that often those who have been hazed are conditioned to perpetuate the bad behavior.
“It was done to me, so ... this is what we do here,” Allan said.
Forty-four states, including Illinois, have laws against hazing; some treat it as a felony.
The NCAA, the largest governing body for college sports in the United States that includes more than 1,100 member schools and more than 400,000 athletes, does not have rules regarding hazing. Instead, the association defers to state laws and school policies.
Particularly egregious and violent acts of hazing routinely draw headlines. Fraternities and other school-based groups have often been involved despite the efforts of organizations like the Anti-Hazing Coalition.
Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and researcher who studies hazing, said she believes incidents have increased in “frequency and severity, and in sexuality.”
“So the reason it has become more sexualized is that it is the quickest way to humiliate someone and to make them powerless,” Lipkins said.
Experts say even seemingly harmless acts of hazing that still occur in the professional ranks — younger players being forced to carry equipment, wear silly costumes in public or clean up after team events — should be discouraged by coaches.
“In general, hazing goes from mild to severe,” Lipkins said.
Vanderbilt linebacker Ethan Barr said head coach Clark Lea sent a group text to the team with a link to a news story about the Northwestern hazing scandal.
“I don’t know all too much about it, but it was definitely a little stunning to see that kind of behavior not stop when people knew about it,” Barr said.
Lea said he doesn't directly address hazing with his players, but the goal is to create an environment where they have a positive experience — and for them to be comfortable coming forward if something is preventing that.
Gerry DiNardo was the head coach at Vanderbilt, LSU and Indiana from 1991-2004. He said he never experienced hazing as a player at Notre Dame in the early 1970s and never wanted it in his programs.
DiNardo, now an analyst for the Big Ten Network, said he went so far as to tell his players that they could not join fraternities that hazed their pledges. These days, DiNardo can't imagine high-level recruits putting up with hazing and choosing to play for programs where it is a tradition.
“Everyone says we got a great culture. But what is a culture?” DiNardo said. “It’s the way we do things. And if you have people doing things like we’ve heard described, you know, that's toxic culture.”
The pro wrestler and his wife's new reality show, "Miz and Mrs," debuts on USA July 24. The Miz tells Cheddar that if he had to fight a tech titan, he'd pick Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. "My recycling bin is out the roof. I need like three different recycling bins all filled with Amazon boxes because [Maryse] loves Amazon Prime."
These are the headlines you Need2Know.
* **Damage Control at the White House:** President Trump will meet with his cabinet today after widespread criticism of his comments spread following Monday's joint meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. To appease his base,Trump declared yesterday that he simply misspoke during the presser--but some critics find that hard to believe.
* **Manafort Goes to Court:** The case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort is moving forward--despite a denial of his team's request for a change of location. Manafort's team asked for the trial to be moved from Alexandria to Roanoke, believing that Alexandria's more liberal base would be less forgiving and attract more press.
* **University Doctor Under Fire:** A former Ohio State University doctor is accused of molesting student athletes after complaints surfaced from several ex-wrestlers--one of whom condemned is Congressman Jim Jordan for ignoring the allegations.
* **Vacancies at Comic-Con:** The 2018 Comic-Con kicks of in San Diego tonight. But some of the usual attendees will be missing: network HBO, the Avengers, X-Men and Deadpool will be among the absent guests.
* **American League Still Number One:** The American league clung to its title as reigning champ after it defeated the National League for the sixth straight year during last night's MLB All-Star game.
Cheddar Big News' Hena Doba gives us the details.
The golf superstar signed with TaylorMade back in 2017 but was out of the game that year due to a back surgery and a reckless driving incident. Since then, things have turned around for Woods. He's preparing to play in the British Open in just a few days and his "ball striking is terrific, his putting is great, and I think he’s in a great position right now to challenge,” says TaylorMade CEO David Abeles.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
Trump Faces Bipartisan Backlash
Russian Woman Charged With Election Meddling
Hawaii's 'Lava Bomb' Injures Tourists
Deadly Fire Near Yosemite National Park Doubles
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, days after the indictment of 12 Russian operatives for trying to disrupt the 2016 election.
*A federal judge blasts the HHS giving them one more week to reunite 2,000 families at the border after the administration missed the initial deadline.
*Protests erupted in Chicago over the weekend after a popular barber was shot and killed by the police.
*Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber won Wimbledon titles over the weekend. And France took home the World Cup.
Cheddar's Hope King gives us the details.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump is in England preparing for a joint news conference with Theresa May. While the duo dined last night, The Sun newspaper published a sit-down interview with the president where he criticized May’s handling of Brexit. Trump warned trade deals with England could be nixed if Brexit isn’t handled properly.
*FBI agent Peter Strzok was removed from working on the Hillary Clinton email probe and the Trump-Russia investigation after text messages were discovered in which he criticized the president.
*Stormy Daniels made an encore appearance at the same strip club she was arrested at the night prior.
*A Kansas City water park will not reopen after a 10-year-old boy died on a water slide.
*Serena Williams beat Julia Görges of Germany yesterday to reach her 10th Wimbledon final.
Cheddar Big News's Jill Wagner gives us the details.
The Olympic gold medalist hosts “Wedding Cake Championship,” a new show on Food Network, with longtime friend and fellow figure skater Johnny Weir. While the new gig is worlds different from their athletic careers, there are still some similarities. “The competition part of it was fun,” Lipinski tells Cheddar.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
* Confusion at the NATO summit after President Trump said allies will add billions of dollars to defense spending. But French president Emmanuel Macron rebuffed those claims.
* Stormy Daniels was arrested after an alleged misdemeanor at a Columbus, Ohio, strip club. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, has also been working to reunite families at the southern border.
* The U.S. Senate voted yesterday on a non-binding resolution giving it a say on what tariffs are levied and against whom.
* New evidence prompted the Department of Justice reopened the case of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who was killed in 1955 in Money, Miss.
* John Schnatter, founder and former CEO of Papa John’s, has resigned his chairman role after a racially-charged comment on a conference call.
* Americans made it to both the men’s and women’s Wimbledon semifinals, the first time since 2009.
Cheddar Big News' Jill Wagner tells us the latest.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
The NATO Summit got off to a heated start as President Trump already criticized member countries for not paying their fair share of defense spending.
The Trump administration also missed its promised deadline to reunite dozens of migrant families.
A natural gas leak in Sun Prairie, Wisc., turned deadly when an explosion erupted for several hours.
Brett Kavanaugh, the president's pick for the open Supreme Court seat, met on Capitol Hill with the vice president and senators yesterday.
The NFL Players Association is challenging the anti-kneeling policy, which requires players to remain in the locker room if they choose to protest the national anthem.
Hurricane Chris makes its way up the East Coast, but shouldn't make a major impact on land.
Cheddar Big News' Jill Wagner gives us the details.
France kicked Belgium out of the championship tournament on Tuesday. Some of the team's success so far can be attributed to its coach, Didier Deschamps, who captained the 1998 title-winning team and can convey that experience to his players, says Jeffrey Marcus, publisher of The Banter.
