Citing the ongoing investigation into allegations of hazing within the Northwestern football program, a trio of players has announced that they will not participate in the Big Ten conference’s media availabilities this week in Indianapolis.
Linebacker Bryce Gallagher, defensive back Rod Heard, and wide receiver Bryce Kirtz were all scheduled to have a media availability on Wednesday following interim head coach David Braun, but the trio released a statement Tuesday saying they would not participate.
“After taking with our parents, our teammates and Coach Braun, we have made the decision to not attend Big Ten Media Day,” the players said. “This was very difficult since we were excited about the opportunity to participate in this great Big Ten tradition, and to talk about the game we love and the season ahead. But given the recent events involving the Northwestern football program, we did not want our participation to be dominated by the hazing issue and steal the focus away from football and the upcoming season.”
Braun also released a statement saying that he is “fully supportive” of the players’ decision.
“The decision from our players to forgo Big Ten Media Day was entirely theirs, and they approached it with a great deal of maturity and thoughtfulness,” he said. “I’m fully supportive of both their reasoning and the decision itself, and I look forward to attending the event.”
The hazing scandal at Northwestern University recently widened to include a volleyball player who on Monday became the first female athlete to sue the university over allegations she was retaliated against by the coach for reporting her mistreatment.
The player, identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, says she was physically harmed to the point of requiring medical attention during a hazing incident in early 2021.
According to the lawsuit, Jane Doe contracted COVID-19 in February of that year, despite following the team’s COVID guidelines. Despite this, she says, Northwestern volleyball coach Shane Davis and an assistant coach informed her she would need to undergo a “punishment” for violating the guidelines. A day later, on March 2, 2021, the coaches permitted the volleyball team’s captains to pick the punishment: She was forced to run “suicides” in the gym while diving to the floor each time she reached a line on the court. As she did this, the suit says, volleyball coaching staff, team members and trainers watched.
Campus police were made aware of the incident, as was the athletic department, the lawsuit says. Jane Doe says she was isolated from the team and Davis forced her to write an apology letter to trainers. The lawsuit also says the player met with athletic director Derrick Gragg to discuss the culture of the volleyball program but he “did nothing in response” to her concerns.
Davis did not immediately respond Monday morning to messages seeking comment.
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The school announced in December 2021 that it had signed Davis to a multi-year contract extension. A year later, in December 2022, the player medically retired from the sport.
The lawsuit was submitted in Cook County, Illinois, by the Chicago-based Salvi Law Firm and names as defendants Davis and Cragg as well as the university, its current and former presidents and the board of trustees. The suit also names Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner James J. Phillips, who was Northwestern’s athletic director until 2021. Phillips, who has been named as a defendant in two other lawsuits, has said he never “condoned or tolerated inappropriate conduct” against athletes while he was Northwestern’s athletics director.
“Northwestern enabled, tolerated, and, as shared in Jane Doe’s complaint, encouraged a culture of hazing,” said Parker Stinar, one of her attorneys.
Also Monday, civil rights attorney Ben Crump planned to announce another lawsuit against Northwestern over hazing allegations in its athletic programs, with the latest suit touted as containing “damning new details” of sexual hazing and abuse in its football program.
Crump and other attorneys were expected to join former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates in discussing the lawsuit’s filing Monday afternoon in Chicago. A news advisory says the complaint will allege “negligence, willful and wanton disregard for player safety and well-being” among other claims.
Yates is among more than 15 men and women who have retained Crump and the Chicago-based Levin & Perconti law to seek damages against Northwestern due to its hazing scandal.
Football coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired 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,” school President Michael Schill said.
One previous lawsuit accuses Fitzgerald of enabling a culture of racism, including forcing players of color to cut their hair and behave differently to be more in line with the “Wildcat Way.”
Fitzgerald, who led Northwestern for 17 seasons and was a star linebacker for the Wildcats, has maintained he had no knowledge of hazing. Fitzgerald said after being fired that he was working with his agent, Bryan Harlan and his lawyer, Dan Webb, to “protect my rights in accordance with the law.”
The hazing allegations have broadened beyond the school’s football program as attorneys said last week that male and female athletes reported misconduct within its baseball and softball programs. They also suggested that sexual abuse and racial discrimination within the football program was so rampant that coaches knew it was happening.
Crump’s advisory for Monday’s news conference states that the suit will identify “one Northwestern football coach who allegedly witnessed the hazing and sexual conduct and failed to report it.”
Northwestern has been added to a long list of American universities to face a scandal in athletics and may eventually join the trend of making large payouts following allegations of sexual abuse.
