William Howard-USA TODAY Sports
A former Northwestern football player filed a bombshell lawsuit on Monday accusing the university of failing to stop rampant hazing on the team, and claiming that some members of the coaching staff were also aware of—and sometimes subjected to—the abuse.
In a 52-page lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court, former quarterback Lloyd Yates alleges that he suffered unwanted sexual, physical, and emotional harassment while he was on the team from 2015 to 2018. During that time, the lawsuit alleges, Yates and his teammates were subjected to a hazing ritual 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 forcibly restrained by his fellow players, who would rub “their genital areas against the teammates’ genitals, face, and buttocks while rocking back and forth without consent of the teammate,” the lawsuit states. And players were not the only ones subjected to this hazing.