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The NFL's Hazing Dilemma Editor's note: ESPN's "NFL Live" anchor Trey Wingo wrote to us asking to reiterate that does not support hazing, and did not intend to glorify or celebrate hazing in any way. He added: "I think there is a huge difference between taping rookies to a goal post and pouring water on them, and sodomizing someone with a broomstick." Sept. 18, 2006. "Hazing, you gotta love it. What do you do better at camp than tape rookies to goal posts? Shower them with stuff. Oh, good times." Those were the comments of ESPN's "NFL Live" host Trey Wingo on Aug. 21, over video of two Carolina Panthers rookies being taped to goal posts and drenched with what looked like ice water. It's tradition with the Carolina Panthers to demonstrably haze rookies on the last day of camp. All during camp, they may be asked to sing songs, carry veterans' equipment, and a host of other seemingly innocent tasks. But on the final day, the veterans put on a show for the fans and the cameras. "You might as well let them do what they're going to do because if you run, you're going to get dunked in the 40-degree cold tub and that's a lot worse," Panthers rookie linebacker Richard Anderson, who was a victim of the hazing, told the local Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal. "Everybody goes through it, so you might as well get it done and have fun." That attitude is in stark contrast to what happened to linebacker Sean Tufts at the Panthers' 2004 camp. According to the Herald-Journal, at the end of the last practice of that season's training camp, Tufts ran into the nearby woods to escape the hazing. But veterans waited until he returned, duct-taped him to a chair, doused him with ice water and Gatorade, and left him behind as they went into the locker room. It was two fans who eventually set him free. Hazing's popularity Hazing isn't just confined to the Carolina Panthers, or even professional sports. According to Hank Nuwer, a journalism professor at Franklin College, who has written many articles and books on hazing, "fagging" was the early form of hazing, born in England centuries ago to initiate younger students into manhood. It was initially created as a kind of apprenticeship, but evolved in many cases into servitude and abuse. In the United States, it grew in popularity in college fraternities and other exclusive organizations, and is also a common practice in military and law-enforcement organizations. While it was long considered a male-only activity, reports of women's sports teams at various high schools and colleges over the last two years have opened the eyes of many that this is not just "boys being boys." In the NFL, hazing isn't simply confined to the Panthers; it's become the expected behavior of veterans toward incoming rookies. Examples of hazing abound on almost every team. Just this season:
Most reported hazing incidents in the NFL have involved what some might consider innocuous acts like these; Despite maybe a strained vocal cord, it's hard to see anyone being physically injured by being forced to sing a song. However, this hazing at the professional level, and the positive publicity it generates from media outlets like ESPN, leads to hazing at the collegiate and high school level, Nuwer says, as younger athletes see approval for hazing and want to emulate it themselves. Following ESPN's positive portrayal of NFL rookie hazing at the training camps of the San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills in 2002, a college student wrote this letter to Nuwer: "They taped them to poles, poured ice water and Gatorade on them and made them do silly tricks. If they can do this without ANY retaliation, why can't my fraternity do the same? Because we're not rich football players? This is rude." In addition to the bad example set by NFL veterans, younger people, according to Nuwer, are less able to determine how far is "too far." Examples abound of younger athletes, and non-athletes in fraternities, who have been physically harmed, sexually assaulted, or killed while being hazed.
While many younger athletes go to the extremes of physical attacks, forced intake of drugs and alcohol, and sexual assault, most NFL players know to stop hazing before it leads to actions that are likely to injure someone. That isn't to say that every adult playing in the NFL has good judgment. In 1998, New Orleans Saints rookie tight end Cam Cleeland was sidelined with an eye injury he sustained after getting bashed with a bag of coins in a hazing incident. During that same year, rookie defensive tackle Jeff Danish was sent to the hospital during the same training camp after being tossed through a window. Accomplices in the media Members of the media, including Wingo, are generally laughing along with the NFL veterans who haze the rookies with sometimes constant harassment through training camp, while at the same time chastising students for doing the same things. "As hazing incidents involving high school and college athletes increasingly result in arrests, suspensions and civil suits, newspapers never fail, that I could find, to hold amateur athletes accountable," said Nuwer. "It is only in coverage of professional sports that some newspaper writers tolerate, or worse, encourage hazing." ESPN spokesperson Bill Hofheimer echoed Nuwer's sentiment, saying that the network has aired reports, particularly on its program "Outside the Lines," which paint school-based hazing in a poor light. Still, Hofheimer defended Wingo's comments glorifying the actions of the Carolina Panthers veterans, saying that the longtime ESPN personality did not intend to offend anyone. "[Wingo] in no way condones hazing," Hofheimer said, when asked about Wingo's televised comment, "And hazing, you gotta love it." Hofheimer said the context of the video justified Wingo's comment, because the rookies being duct-taped and doused with water were smiling, and that it was being done out in the open, not in some "dark corner." However, many school policies and state laws that prohibit hazing do not make exceptions when the hazing victim agrees to or enjoys the hazing. Hofheimer said that this fun and games isn't hazing at all, and that it's just part of the "initiation process." The very definition of hazing is, according to Merriam-Webster, "an initiation process involving harassment." Former running back Dave Kopay, who came out after he retired in 1975, was never hazed in his rookie year with the San Francisco 49ers, though he said he got paddled while at the University of Washington. Kopay said the worst he saw were rookies being made to sing songs to the veterans while he was with the Washington Redskins. Kopay said he doesn't have a strong feeling about hazing in the NFL. "It never got into being an angry thing," Kopay said. "But, it seems as though [the rookies] are put into a second-class citizenship." In his autobiography, "Alone In The Trenches," former NFL player Esera Tuaolo talks about having to buy extravagant dinners for the veterans and being "forced" to sing for them, neither of which he says he minded too much, because he had the money to buy expensive dinners and he had the voice to impress even the most cynical of his teammates. Rules and laws prohibiting hazing, in athletics or otherwise, abound. According to Stophazing.org, 44 states have laws prohibiting hazing; only Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Wyoming have yet to adopt an anti-hazing law. However, in almost all of the 44 states with anti-hazing laws, only students and others affiliated with learning institutions are protected by the law. Laws in Indiana, where the Indianapolis Colts play, do not limit hazing protection to academic institutions. In New York, where the Bills, Giants and Jets have their training camps, hazing laws broadly include "any organization," but those laws focus on physical injuries, not mental stress. No NFL hazing policy While the prohibitions against student hazing continue to grow, and while crackdowns on student hazing make headlines virtually every day, the practice flourishes at the professional level with no formal restrictions. "The problem is, we don't see much prohibition from the league offices, if any," Nuwer said. That's because, according to league spokesperson Brian McCarthy, the NFL has no policy on hazing; the league leaves it up to each team to do as they see fit. The NFL does regulate some player behavior, including the use of illegal substances; in fact, the league fines players for wearing the wrong socks, but not for forcing rookies into a kind of servitude. The popular idea that hazing is a necessary, time-honored "tradition" of "initiation" is one that NFL teams use to justify their policies of allowing hazing. At Baltimore Ravens training camp in August, Ravens rookie cornerback David Pittman was tied to a goal post and drenched in Gatorade and shaving cream. When asked about the team's policy on hazing, Ravens spokesperson Kevin Byrne declined to comment, saying simply, "Our tradition played out in front of almost 3,000 fans and most of the Baltimore sports media." New York Giants spokesperson Pat Hanlon said that the team has no formal policy on hazing. "The only rookie initiation-type stuff that goes on in training camp is when the rookies have to get up in the dining hall at dinner and introduce themselves and sing a song," Hanlon said. "In my experience here, there has been no need for a formal policy ... it has been understood that anything that isn't good-natured isn't tolerated." San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Nolan echoed the hazing-within-limits sentiment, and said he is most in favor of hazing that is done on the rookie's terms. "If it's going to be an embarrassing moment, it's nice to make it on the other person's terms, at least," Nolan said. "Whether it's a rookie show, something like that, they have to act out something but they're acting out, making fun of the veterans, the rookie show is part of hazing but they're also making fun of the veterans. There's a give and take that makes it a good thing." Like many others who defend hazing, Nolan said it helps build the team. "It builds team unity if it's done correctly," San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Nolan said. "It can be done in a way that's kind of fun. [The rookies] may not enjoy it necessarily, but it builds some camaraderie among the team if done properly." Whether it actually builds unity or creates division is a source of debate. While many coaches fall on the same side of that debate as Nolan, Minnesota Vikings head coach Brad Childress, in his first year with the franchise, is building a very different team atmosphere: He has banned all hazing from the team. "We're not a team that hazes because, hey, we want all hands on deck," Childress told the Associated Press. "If there's four (rookies) who can contribute, or three, we want them there if they can help us win." This new policy for the Vikings is in stark contrast to that of their last head coach, Mike Tice, who was fired after a tumultuous 2005 season. Tice, deemed by many a "player's coach," considered hazing a rite of passage. Hazing and the law While there are not many specific laws or league or team regulations that protect NFL players from hazing, there is recourse for a player who believes he has been harmed. According to Washington, D.C.-based attorney Doug Fierberg, who specializes in, among other things, personal injury and hazing, NFL players can often be covered under other statutes. "If a football player is physically assaulted as part of joining a team, there may be state criminal statutes that protect him," Fierberg said. Those statutes include statutes against assault and battery, which some hazing could potentially be considered. Jeff Danish filed a lawsuit against the Saints, teammate Andre Royal, an assistant coach and five other players, for assault in connection with the 1998 hazing incident that sent him to the hospital. The parties settled out of court. "A lot of states have enacted hazing statutes simply to fit in where their general criminal laws have gaps," Fierberg said. Still, the damage this hazing does may run a lot deeper than the mental and physical punishment that specific NFL rookies have to endure. According to Nuwer, comments like Wingo's, which glorify hazing at the professional level, are seen by high school and college kids as approval for them to haze. "No question it … lead[s] young people to emulate what they see on the TV screen and in DVDs," Nuwer said. And that includes ESPN, the NFL and other entities celebrating the hazing of athletes. Nuwer said that younger people are less likely to know when to stop; they may see footage on TV of pro athletes whom they idolize taping one another to field goal posts and dousing them with water, and turn that into something much more sinister. While no deaths in the NFL are attributed to hazing, Nuwer cites almost 150 deaths in the United States in the last century linked directly to hazing. "All this hazing will end when a high-priced rookie suffers a career-ending injury and a smart lawyer for the rookie-plaintiff goes after the league commissioner, coaches and team management, as well as the perpetrators," Nuwer said. (Roger Phillips contributed to this report)
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