Like many posters on this board, the last few weeks have been bewildering, angering, and profoundly sad. I love sports, and I love football, despite the physical danger it clearly poses to those who play it at high levels. Like many posters, I am an NU alum. For years, I have channeled that love of football into identification with Northwestern football: it was always the program that did it right, graduating more of its members than any other FBS team, avoiding recruiting violations, following the non-nonsense leadership of its home grown coach. I was genuinely proud of how the team reflected the quality of the university community.
The slow drip of accusations, revelations and recriminations has been Rashomon-like. Players like Greg Newsome and Corey Wootton claimed publicly that they saw no hazing, others, sometimes anonymously, sometimes not, have said in multiple outlets, including the Athletic, that the hazing had its origins in the late 90’s though it grew and morphed over the years, with its epicenter as Camp Kenosha.
The name that hit home for me was Warren Long, a fellow East Bay Cat. Warren played at James Logan in Union City, a working class high school that played my kids’ high schools at various times as my kids were growing up. I saw Warren play in high school. Reading his name and reading about his experience, I reflected a little about my experience and views of NU and how it has changed, and possibly not changed, in the 50+ years since I matriculated during the late ‘60s. I am not a social scientist (I studied math and applied math) but my fellow alum brother is (Psych, PhD Psych from Stanford) and my non-white spouse graduated from Medill. Conversations with them influenced what I am writing here. My immediate family is NU steeped, racially mixed, and (myself excluded) generally thoughtful, and this influences what I am going to say here.
While what I say here is speculative, I think it does give a framework of what may have gone on with the football team the last 25 years, and possibly other sports. When I (and my immediate family members) went to NU, the undergraduate student body was predominately white, with maybe 10% of the students African American, and other race groups (Asian, Hispanic. Native American) a smattering. To my view, there was a big divide among white students. A large percentage of the white students were essentially country club kids: they came from high schools like New Trier or high end private schools, had real affluence, and tended to socialize together, and came from all over the country. Another, seemingly equal percentage of white kids were basically working class kids who had been their school’s valedictorians and Merit Scholars, were getting financial aid and worked board jobs, work study and odd jobs to pay for their education. They tended to come from the Chicago area and other midwestern cities like Milwaukee and St. Louis (my home town) and they also socialized together. A lot had gone to south suburban high schools or Catholic working class high schools (as I had). Nonwhite kids, which included a disproportionate number of athletes, also banded together. My experience of nonwhites was that they were generally uncommonly smart and driven, and expressed an understandable wariness of the predominate social groups at NU.
In the 50 intervening years, the country, and NU, have undergone a lot of changes. I visited campus last year as my niece matriculated, I was in Chicago, and she had a chance to show me around campus. The student body is much more diverse. The Asian population has skyrocketed, there are many more apparently Hispanic students, more foreign students and fewer white undergrads proportionately. Frats and sororities have disbanded. The vibe was much different. In talking to my niece’s classmates, though, there still appeared to be the divide among the prep school and working class groups, though both groups seemed more diverse.
All of this takes me back to what may have been in plain sight the last 25 years but which I missed completely. While the country, and NU have been changing greatly in the last 25 years, the football team has been guided and in some ways populated by people from the sociological mix that was prevalent at NU when I was there. The coaching staff, while always integrated, has been led by Fitz (and Randy Walker before him) who were essentially white working class guys with white working class values. Small things, like the crew cut, use of Navy Seals as inspirational speakers, camo uniform motifs, all speak to a cultural viewpoint that is reflective of where the coaching staff came from. Along with it, from reading the various articles, came internal player leadership that was largely players who mirrored the demographic of the coaching cadre. Per the Athletic, the guys organizing the “car wash” were offensive linemen. If you go back and look at the rosters of the last 30 years, the OL has largely (though not exclusively) white kids who projected a toughness and take no prisoners image. A California African American kid like Long, I am afraid, had to navigate the culture that these “leaders” enforced. I can see where it was intimidating. My son, who is non white and a better athlete than me quit sports in high school. His high school was pretty well integrated, but the sports teams were coached by and dominated by the white kids. He has, due to me, been a lifelong NU football fan. When I talked to him a few days ago, he told me “Dad, why do you think I quit doing sports? The crap in the locker room made the game not worth it.”
In short, I can see where the hazing practices cited grew in large part from the sociology of NU, its changing demographic, and, through the coaching hiring decisions, a tendency to try to preserve the social strata (in this case the dominance of the working class white contingent) that was prevalent when Fitz played.
I realize this is speculation on my part, and I really believe Fitz is not overtly, or purposely, racist. Nonetheless, I can see implicit racism (and possibly class resentment) as being a totally plausible trigger that allowed the hazing enforcement to morph and prevail all these years. Social and race tension existed when I was at NU; I imagine it has changed but still exists.
I hope the University can view this dispassionately as it moves forward, evaluates itself, and makes decisions regarding leadership of the athletic department and teams. How it tackles this will define athletics at NU for better or worse.
I wholly expect some people to reject my take on this, and respectfully accept their criticism if it is put forward thoughtfully.
The slow drip of accusations, revelations and recriminations has been Rashomon-like. Players like Greg Newsome and Corey Wootton claimed publicly that they saw no hazing, others, sometimes anonymously, sometimes not, have said in multiple outlets, including the Athletic, that the hazing had its origins in the late 90’s though it grew and morphed over the years, with its epicenter as Camp Kenosha.
The name that hit home for me was Warren Long, a fellow East Bay Cat. Warren played at James Logan in Union City, a working class high school that played my kids’ high schools at various times as my kids were growing up. I saw Warren play in high school. Reading his name and reading about his experience, I reflected a little about my experience and views of NU and how it has changed, and possibly not changed, in the 50+ years since I matriculated during the late ‘60s. I am not a social scientist (I studied math and applied math) but my fellow alum brother is (Psych, PhD Psych from Stanford) and my non-white spouse graduated from Medill. Conversations with them influenced what I am writing here. My immediate family is NU steeped, racially mixed, and (myself excluded) generally thoughtful, and this influences what I am going to say here.
While what I say here is speculative, I think it does give a framework of what may have gone on with the football team the last 25 years, and possibly other sports. When I (and my immediate family members) went to NU, the undergraduate student body was predominately white, with maybe 10% of the students African American, and other race groups (Asian, Hispanic. Native American) a smattering. To my view, there was a big divide among white students. A large percentage of the white students were essentially country club kids: they came from high schools like New Trier or high end private schools, had real affluence, and tended to socialize together, and came from all over the country. Another, seemingly equal percentage of white kids were basically working class kids who had been their school’s valedictorians and Merit Scholars, were getting financial aid and worked board jobs, work study and odd jobs to pay for their education. They tended to come from the Chicago area and other midwestern cities like Milwaukee and St. Louis (my home town) and they also socialized together. A lot had gone to south suburban high schools or Catholic working class high schools (as I had). Nonwhite kids, which included a disproportionate number of athletes, also banded together. My experience of nonwhites was that they were generally uncommonly smart and driven, and expressed an understandable wariness of the predominate social groups at NU.
In the 50 intervening years, the country, and NU, have undergone a lot of changes. I visited campus last year as my niece matriculated, I was in Chicago, and she had a chance to show me around campus. The student body is much more diverse. The Asian population has skyrocketed, there are many more apparently Hispanic students, more foreign students and fewer white undergrads proportionately. Frats and sororities have disbanded. The vibe was much different. In talking to my niece’s classmates, though, there still appeared to be the divide among the prep school and working class groups, though both groups seemed more diverse.
All of this takes me back to what may have been in plain sight the last 25 years but which I missed completely. While the country, and NU have been changing greatly in the last 25 years, the football team has been guided and in some ways populated by people from the sociological mix that was prevalent at NU when I was there. The coaching staff, while always integrated, has been led by Fitz (and Randy Walker before him) who were essentially white working class guys with white working class values. Small things, like the crew cut, use of Navy Seals as inspirational speakers, camo uniform motifs, all speak to a cultural viewpoint that is reflective of where the coaching staff came from. Along with it, from reading the various articles, came internal player leadership that was largely players who mirrored the demographic of the coaching cadre. Per the Athletic, the guys organizing the “car wash” were offensive linemen. If you go back and look at the rosters of the last 30 years, the OL has largely (though not exclusively) white kids who projected a toughness and take no prisoners image. A California African American kid like Long, I am afraid, had to navigate the culture that these “leaders” enforced. I can see where it was intimidating. My son, who is non white and a better athlete than me quit sports in high school. His high school was pretty well integrated, but the sports teams were coached by and dominated by the white kids. He has, due to me, been a lifelong NU football fan. When I talked to him a few days ago, he told me “Dad, why do you think I quit doing sports? The crap in the locker room made the game not worth it.”
In short, I can see where the hazing practices cited grew in large part from the sociology of NU, its changing demographic, and, through the coaching hiring decisions, a tendency to try to preserve the social strata (in this case the dominance of the working class white contingent) that was prevalent when Fitz played.
I realize this is speculation on my part, and I really believe Fitz is not overtly, or purposely, racist. Nonetheless, I can see implicit racism (and possibly class resentment) as being a totally plausible trigger that allowed the hazing enforcement to morph and prevail all these years. Social and race tension existed when I was at NU; I imagine it has changed but still exists.
I hope the University can view this dispassionately as it moves forward, evaluates itself, and makes decisions regarding leadership of the athletic department and teams. How it tackles this will define athletics at NU for better or worse.
I wholly expect some people to reject my take on this, and respectfully accept their criticism if it is put forward thoughtfully.
