A former Northwestern University football player is speaking out amid hazing allegations that prompted the school to suspend its head coach for two weeks.
In an interview with The Daily Northwestern, the anonymous former student-athlete detailed the hazing allegations investigated by the University, including how some of the misconduct included coerced sexual acts—and that head coach Pat Fitzgerald may have been aware. A second player also confirmed the hazing incidents to the student-newspaper.
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s just absolutely egregious and vile and inhumane behavior,” the former player, who said he reported his experience in late November 2022, said. “It’s just a really abrasive and barbaric culture that has permeated throughout that program for years on end now.”
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On Friday, the school announced “significant actions to address and prevent hazing within its football project” after an independent investigation was launched in December. An executive summary of the investigation details how hazing incidents within the team occurred both at the school and at off-campus practices at “Camp Kenosha” in Wisconsin.
Fitzgerald, who has been the school’s head coach since 2006, has since been suspended for two weeks without pay as a result of the investigation. The investigation determined that while the coaching staff did not know about the misconduct, there were “significant opportunities to discover and report the hazing conduct.”
“I was very disappointed when I heard about the allegations of hazing on our football team,” Fitzgerald, who started his suspension on Friday, said in a statement. “Although I was not aware of the alleged incidents, I have spoken to University officials, and they informed me of a two-week suspension, effective immediately.”
The former player, however, claimed the team’s hazing may have been in the head coach’s purview. He alleged that hazing centered around “running,” a practice used to punish usually younger team members for any mistakes on the field. If a player was told to “run,” he would be restrained by upwards of 10 upperclassmen dressed in “Purge-like masks” who would dry-hump the victim in a dark locker room, the former athlete said.
The practice, the former player said, usually occurred during training camp and around the holidays, spurring the names “Runsgiving” and “Runsmas.”
“It’s a shocking experience as a freshman to see your fellow freshman teammates get run over, but then you see everybody bystanding in the locker room,” the former player said.
He added that a player would know they had been tapped for “running” after other members would clap their hands above their heads around the player. The clap, he said, was identified as “the Shrek clap.” The former player alleged that Fitzgerald made the signal during practices after a team member made an error.
“Everyone would just be looking at each other and be like ‘bro, Fitz knows about this,’ because you wouldn’t take that action otherwise,” the former team member said. “Everyone joins in, because he’s the head coach.”
The former player also detailed an annual tradition called “the carwash,” where he said some players would be forced to stand naked in front of the showers and spin around, thus forcing all other members who wanted to pass them to “basically [rub[ up against a bare-naked man.” Inside the showers, the player added, other members would spray people down with a hose.
“It’s extremely painful,” the former player said.
In another act of hazing, the former player alleged, the freshman quarterback would be forced to conduct a football play with another teammate—while both of them were named. Once, a player was “very vocally adamant” about not wanting to participate and was allegedly threatened that he had “no other option,” the former athlete added.
“It’s done under this smoke and mirror of ‘oh, this is team bonding,’ but no, this is sexual abuse,” he said.
