100-plus deaths later, why can’t we finally end bizarre culture of college & sports hazing? | Opinion

Asinine. Juvenile. Unnecessary. Archaic. Embarrassing. Dumb. Humiliating. Dangerous.

There are not enough words to describe how strange it is that the shadow-culture of hazing continues “a thing” in American sports and beyond, in lockerrooms and also in fraternities and sororities. The practice is best known at the college or even high-school level where stupid hijinks might be blamed on youth, although the bizarre immaturity also trickles up to the pros.

One other word about hazing too often applies:

Deadly. As in, at least 104 documented hazing deaths on U.S. college campuses just since 2000.

Forty-four states now have laws against hazing. And most universities and teams now have rules against hazing.

The University of Miami, for example, outlines anti-hazing policies in both its Student Rights & Responsibilities Handbook and its Student-Athlete Handbook. UM declined to make available a representative to discuss hazing but provided pdf copies of both handbooks.

The main student handbook refers to an “absolute prohibition on hazing,” which it defines as “an action or situation created on or off campus which recklessly or intentionally harms, damages, or endangers the mental or physical health or safety of a student.”

UM’s athlete handbook includes the same and says hazing includes but is not limited to “any brutality of a physical nature; forced calisthenics; exposure to the elements; forced/encouraged consumption of any food, liquor, drug, or other substance; other forced activity which would adversely affect the physical or mental health or safety of the student; any activity which would subject the student to mental stress; encouraged exclusion from social contact; and forced/encouraged conduct which would result in extreme embarrassment.”

We wonder, though (generally, not with Miami specifically) if these are simply legal safeguards to mitigate in any future lawsuits brought by victims when things go badly awry. And we wonder if strict adherence to these rules are regularly emphasized. Good head coaches know most everything about theirs teams, yet with a wink and a blind eye may too often feel no need to know what their players are doing inside the sanctum of the lockerroom in the misguided name of “team-building” and fostering “camaraderie.”

So you get what’s happening at Northwestern.

Northwestern University is a Chicago area school renowned as a research college (and for its journalism program) and rooted in 131 years of history. It has never been known first for football, but that program is dubiously front and center now over the embarrassment of hazing thanks to the careless “leadership” that that just got popular football coach Pat Fitzgerald fired after 18 seasons.

The school paid for an independent investigation last fall after a hazing allegation by a whistleblower, and last week released a two-page conclusion that led to Fitzgerald initially being given an absurdly lenient, negligible, out-of-season two-week suspension. (Hope had the team trainer gave him a good skin balm, because those slaps on the wrist can sting for a minute).

Then the hammer fell.

The Daily Northwestern student newspaper this week reported details of the hazing from two player sources, and Fitzgerald was fired on Monday. He now is suing for beach of contract.

The details included team rituals involving nudity and players subjected to hazing being hosed with a jet stream of water in the showers. “It’s extremely painful,” the player said. That player also alleged he witnessed and was forced to participate in what was called a naked center-quarterback exchange, with a freshman quarterback forced to take an under-center snap from a freshman center -- both players naked.

Another Northwestern hazing tradition, called “running” or “being run,” also involved a sexual element. The two players suggested Fitzgerald knew about the hazing. In firing the head coach, university president Michael Schill said, “The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening.”

There is no college or team at any level where hazing going on would be a shock.

Women’s ice hockey? At Harvard!? The Boston Globe and later The Athletic reported myriad allegations against now-former coach Katey Stone dating back 20 years involving abusive coaching practices and hazing including a “naked skate” tradition.

The advocacy group stophazing.org reports 55 percent of college students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing, and that 47 percent have experienced hazing prior to coming to college. It says the most common elements of hazing involve alcohol consumption, humiliation, isolation, sleep-deprivation and sex acts.

Sounds sadistic. Sounds like stuff that should be not just against the rules, but illegal. Punishable. And it is.

A national clearinghouse database by Hank Nuwer, emeritus professor at Franklin College in Indiana, cites 104 hazing deaths since 2000 in America, and only one year since 1959 that there hasn’t been at least one.

Compound that number by the family and friends who suffered that ultimate and tragically senseless loss. And the number of those jailed for their criminal roles, and their families. And the number of witnesses who live with the mental burden of what they saw. And the exponentially higher number who did not die but have been hazing victims, too.

From University of Maryland data:

In 95 percent of hazing cases, students who were victims did not report it In 25 percent of hazing cases, coaches or advisors who were aware of the hazing did not report it. Alcohol was involved in 82 percent of hazing-related deaths, but incidents involving sexual intimidation or nudity have increased.

Imagine being parents who send a child away to college with such grand hopes for their future only to get a phone call about a tragedy. One involving a hazing ritual you didn’t even know existed or was a threat.

Imagine being the teenage student leaving home for the first time and the anxiety involved. How will you navigate that mammoth campus or meet new friends? Will the classes be too difficult? Will football at the next level be too tough? With no idea, yet, the dark and dangerous hazing initiations that await you.

We live in a time of heightened awareness to mental health challenges. We hear NBA stars and Olympic gold medalists talk about it openly. That’s a good thing the openness.

There is so much to challenge mental health at the college age without adding the needless burden of hazing -- something plain silly at the root of it, except silly is too frivolous a word for a ritual that has killed more than 100 college students since 2020. Google “hazing deaths” and see the tragedies in headlines, the deaths come to life.

But even all of those deaths have not stopped hazing.

So now controversy and embarrassment sully Northwestern’s good name, after scandal visited even Harvard of all places. Who’s next?

What else has to happen before colleges and sports teams uniformly, forcefully and finally abolish hazing in America?