Hazing is still an issue

[3SailAway]

I do find a silver lining when I think of how much attitudes and culture have changed about this since I was growing up (at least in my region of the country and among the people I know). For example, I went through hazing as a freshman in a church youth group. There was a lot of built-up apprehension before the event, and although there was no nudity or physical harm, I was blind folded and had an egg cracked over my head amongst other things. Adult advisors definitely knew about it. I never thought twice about whether this hazing was okay—I just accepted it. In college, I knew about a lot of fraternity hazing and sometimes encountered the after effects first hand (took a pledge to the hospital to have his stomach pumped). I never spoke out against the system or truly considered how dangerous and wrong it was. Once, at a pledge slave auction, I remember my eyes welling up when a skinny, drunk, bewildered kid I knew was on the block and started to strip at the brothers’ commands. No one around me seemed to find anything amiss. They were laughing and cheering. I didn’t do anything besides leave early. It did haunt me, though. Especially at a university in the South.

Today, none of my kids or their friends would tolerate, participate in, or cover up, any situation like this. Our oldest daughter did find herself in a “right-of-passage” in her co-ed sport, which involved kissing and groping of girls on the dance floor. It took her a few weeks to tell us, but she did. She wanted the organizers informed, the supervising coaches disciplined (they knew), and for her program to never participate in that tournament again. We helped her expose the “tradition”. The very idea of blindfolding/terrorizing fellow students would be anathema to my kids. A mimicked slave auction horrifies them, and they would never go home quietly crying like I did.

I think kids who accept hazing have been socialized to do so, like I was. It takes a culture of people around you who normalize bullying, inappropriate behavior, the idea that new members must earn their place through suffering, etc. At least in my kids lives, at their colleges and their friends colleges, this is not mainstream any more. It may be hidden in the corners of sports and the Greek system, but there will be more and more students who stand up to it.

[blossom]

It is easier to see in the rear view mirror vs. real time that behaviors that used to be OK (blind eye, wink wink, if you do it just don’t get caught) suddenly turn a corner.

A stupid analogy- for two decades, high end retailers have been defending their fur salons. “We only by from suppliers who use humane breeding practices”, “our customers know that when they buy from us, they are buying a sustainable product which was ethically produced”.

And then- one by one- Saks announced it was phasing out their fur departments. Most of the others followed suit. Two handfuls of influential designers announced they would no longer include fur in their collections. And poof.

The reality is likely that the costs of being in that business couldn’t be justified on a P&L basis- and the reputational hits were becoming quantifiable.

But hazing, the wink wink of sexual misconduct in college sports, etc. are all likely to be entering the “zero tolerance” phase of their lifecycle. It will be interesting to see how many of the alleged “control freak” coaches who monitor diet, training hours, who gets on the bus on time, who is getting a D in one of their Gen Ed classes, who had an unauthorized absence from a session to attend his grandma’s funeral etc. are going to claim “I knew nothing”.

[Leigh22]

In 2022, 3 high schools in my state, PA, were dealing with serious hazing accusations. The one HS canceled the football season. Many parents were absolutely outraged at the cancellation.
My point is that this type of behavior is going on way before college.

[Mwfan1921]

Agree, and there are people who are furious that Fitzgerald was fired. Including some big $ NU boosters.

[blossom]

I have no horse in this race- but have seen some similar (not as public, not as obvious) issues played out in the corporate arena.

NU’s lawyers (outside counsel) did the math. They will settle with Fitzgerald for an undisclosed amount, both parties will sign NDA’s, the hope on both sides is that it will blow over. Fitzgerald HAD to sue in order to open the wallet, and the university HAS to now claim whatever it is going to claim in order for the settlement to get hammered out.

The big boosters will sit on their check writing hands for a year or two and then it will become ancient history.

And the news cycle continues…

[88jm19]

“Fitzgerald stays out of the locker room, telling players it belongs to them.”

Yet that is how Fitzgerald lost it. The locker room belongs to the coaches, the players, the program and, most importantly, the school. If there were alleged hazing incidents of any kind going on in that locker room, then the coach has to be the one to stop it first.

This is from the following article:

Pat Fitzgerald's failure to halt hazing inside the Northwestern football...

In my opinion this is an example of turning a blind eye to a situation and is unacceptable.

And from one of the Northwestern Daily articles this is one of the consequences.

“The University also introduced additional sanctions against the team. Someone who does not report to the coaching staff is now required to monitor the locker room, and the team must end all practices at Camp Kenosha, a training camp location.”

And I agree with 3SailAway:

@3SailAway

I think kids who accept hazing have been socialized to do so, like I was. It takes a culture of people around you who normalize bullying, inappropriate behavior, the idea that new members must earn their place through suffering, etc.

So are the people who actually do the hazing, also socialized into their behavior? Awareness and addressing it from an early age is important. Getting everyone to agree on what is acceptable vs unacceptable will be challenging, if not impossible.

[sushiritto]

From Stewart Mandel of The Athletic, a Northwestern alum. It’s not just the NU football team, but also the baseball team:

Meanwhile, at the exact same moment the football program was imploding, we learned Sunday that Northwestern’s baseball program recently underwent its own HR investigation, which found that first-year coach Jim Foster “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior,” leading to a mass exodus of assistant coaches and players. Apparently, the school was planning to sweep that one under the rug, too. Fitzgerald is out, but as of this writing, Foster is not.

And regarding both Northwestern and Stanford, Mandel lives near Stanford:

One thing’s for certain: Both these programs might soon fall off the map completely. Their universities’ larger cultures don’t mesh with college sports’ rapid shift from old-school ivory tower amateurism to a professionalized model with NIL, an expanded Playoff and, inevitably at some point, an employer-employee construct.

You need a subscription, but here’s the link to the article:

Mandel: Fitzgerald's firing isn't the end of Northwestern's problems

[DigitalDad]

@88jm19

“Fitzgerald stays out of the locker room, telling players it belongs to them.”

That was merely establishing “plausible deniability”, giving them free license and implicitly endorsing to do what he knew was happening!

Should be treated like any other criminal organization, investigated criminally, and shut down for the duration - because the perps are still all there. Once everyone graduated in 3 years (remember: this is supposedly a University – sports don’t matter), then start a fresh program.

Everything less is just lip-service!

[Leigh22]

Sadly, a lot has to change. I mentioned hazing issues in high schools. I forgot about the high school seniors at another PA school who took the team to the championship game, which is a huge deal in some towns. Five of them were beating wild animals to death with baseball bats and posting it on Instagram.
The punishment? Fines. The football coach said good kids can do stupid things. Oh and they were unaware that they were breaking the law. Parents were very concerned, not that they raised psychopaths, but that this “boys just being boys” messing around might affect their college plans. It didn’t.
So these upstanding young men went on to locker rooms somewhere.

[Spring4]

Did Foster oversee anything even remotely similar to the sexual abuse that the football coach oversaw?

I’m not seeing that angle in these stories. It doesn’t excuse bad coaching, but sexual abuse is far more serious than bad coaching.

Either way, I’m sure there will be another FB coach who can lead that team and run football practices, not sexual abuse practices.

[tsbna44]

Not sure I agree. It could be a motivation tactic to put responsibility on the players. We don’t know why he did that. We often see players only meetings and other things.

But that doesn’t mean that he’s not accountable.

I’m just saying we don’t know his reasoning for saying the locker room belongs to the players. It’s plausible that’s just a coaching technique to give them individual accountability. Or that’s it’s the reasons you say.

We have no way to know.

[parentologist]

The sexual assault “hazing” is not happening in the academic departments.

[prezbucky]

Many moons ago, there was hazing on both the football and basketball teams at my high school.

Nothing like this verging on (or actually) sexual abuse - but still technically “hazing”. It was referred to as “initiation”.

In football, at the end of one early-season practice, there would be about five baseball bats arranged in a line about 15 feet from each other, with a senior standing next to each one and other upper-classmen grouped behind.

About 15 yards away would be the freshmen, arranged in about five lines – one for each bat.

The freshman would sprint out to a bat, pick it up with the tip of the barrel still touching the ground… put his helmeted forehead on the nub of the bat (handle’s end), and then begin running in a circle around the bat, hands and forehead on the bat. After several such spins, the senior would tell them to stop and spin in the other direction. After several spins in that direction the senior would again tell them to stop, and the freshman would be ordered to sprint back to the “start” line. Of course, nearly everyone fell down, since the earth was spinning beneath their feet. If I remember correctly, I fell down two or three times on the way back to the start.

You stumble back to the starting point, and are congratulated by your teammates.

In basketball, the freshmen were initiated on the bus ride home from an away game. On the bus, the frosh and sophs typically occupy the front of the team bus. So, one by one, the freshmen would be called back to the back of the bus, where the seniors/upperclassmen would ask them 5-10 embarrassing or degrading questions. You made it through that, they patted you on the back, and you went back to the front of the bus.

In neither sport’s rite was the freshman assaulted in any way beyond mild verbal harassment. We were made to feel dizzy (football) and somewhat socially uncomfortable (basketball), but it didn’t go beyond that – no physical or sexual assault, all parties remained clothed, etc.

I think this type of hazing/initiation is fairly common among high school teams. I had cousins at another high school whose football ritual was to be thrown into a local pond.

[Mwfan1921]

Again not sure why you’ve tagged me.

@parentologist

The sexual assault “hazing” is not happening in the academic departments.

Tell that to the female Dartmouth students in the Psychological and Brain sciences department where three profs were forced to resign a few years ago for sexual abuse. There are other examples like this too.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/us/dartmouth-professors-sexual-harassment.html?unlocked_article_code=bOH9kwSr2vxDId2mfUlctIa6kX774vdLlVouapTGkNfF01eHc06MzUR3bPnqz2Pi_tJ2vVKirsTOAbbc8AuclBnjUvVD4t0u3fNpu3tyLY9FGsS6ucY18Apf6wITW9y4GCzRQCrI6yfm6uXw1lJ8DefvJQBO1_PavuGurktQZFuZBJ65sP1e8BjDIMiIKJa3tRygYZYeHmEcUESHcy5WxY_PpR3Nt78GddXg5GUrwabYIZwWq_HdvvbaX2OZpCYrqHTtY2K-w8AyFc7lBUFfnLz27N8R-YT7uPGRQ8wu9RmNx_Vemeaw2oGl0zZYsjKKvnXjfWCSy67GLL0-p2_EROJv9Hivv9qJrn2E&smid=url-share

[Spring4]

Also, this just recently:

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/civil-rights-reaches-agreement-resolve-sexual-harassment-investigation-montgomery-college-maryland

[Mwfan1921]

@Spring4

Did Foster oversee anything even remotely similar to the sexual abuse that the football coach oversaw?

Not sexual abuse, but the HR investigation found there to be evidence that he personally “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior”.

[parentologist]

Professors pressuring students for sex, while also awful, is a totally different matter from group sexual abuse as a group rite of initiation in a sports team. Schools have finally dealt with the issue of profs pressuring students for sex by essentially banning sexual contact between profs and students, with the presumption that if it occurs, it is in some way coerced by virtue of the power the prof has over the student, and often leads to the prof’s dismissal.

This was different. It was a group activity, which would have been extremely unlikely to have occurred in a co-ed setting. You don’t tend to hear about sororities or girls’ teams having these issues. My point is that although the staff in charge of the program are culpable for not having prevented it by closer supervision, it is an offense that is inherent to the nature of the group - young men in a single-sex organization, unsupervised. The way to get rid of it is to change the nature of the organization, or to end the organization.

[fiftyfifty1]

@88jm19

Someone who does not report to the coaching staff is now required to monitor the locker room

Well That’s Fantastic! They need a guard, because this group of students can’t be trusted not to sexually assault fellow team members. And this guard needs to be independent of the coaching staff, because they can’t be relied on either.

Why again is it so important to have these students on campus that academic standards need to be lowered? Why again do tuition dollars go toward paying multi-million coaching contracts?

[sushiritto]

@Spring4

Did Foster oversee anything even remotely similar to the sexual abuse that the football coach oversaw?

I’d re-read the quote that I posted from the The Athletic article and/or buy a subscription to The Athletic to read the entire article in order to discover more info about the NU football and baseball teams. Or google Foster. I have no other info to provide on the matter.

[DigitalDad]

@tsbna44

we don’t know his reasoning for saying the locker room belongs to the players

I understand, of course that “we” don’t know.

However, been around that particular block too many times, that I can tell a duck when I see one waddling across my path, with webbed feet, quacking along. So, while “we” don’t know, “I” am comfortable in being convinced that “I” do.