Former Northwestern football player Warren Miles Long speaks during a news conference July 19.
Erin Hooley/AP file
Two more former Northwestern football players have filed lawsuits alleging they were hazed and abused while on the team. The two add to a growing list of former student-athletes filing lawsuits detailing similar allegations.
Warren Miles Long, a former Northwestern running back who played from 2013-2018, and John Doe 2, a player for the team from 2015-2019, filed lawsuits Friday. They are represented by civil rights attorney Ben Crump and Chicago firm Levin & Perconti.
“With each filing, we have a clearer picture of the routine abuse that occurred in Northwestern’s football program and continues to haunt these young men,” Crump said in a statement.
Long was the 2012 Northern California Player of the Year, and he signed an undrafted free agent contract with the Seattle Seahawks in 2018 after playing for Northwestern.
Long first attended Northwestern’s training camp in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as a freshman in August 2013. Upperclassmen players began initiating hazing rituals at the training camp.
One ritual was called “running” — a group of players would forcibly hold down another and rub their genitals against them. The upperclassmen behind the “runnings” were a part of the “Shrek Squad.” They would initiate the ritual at the training camp by flickering the lights and playing the siren from the movie “The Purge,” the lawsuit states.
Long was subjected to a “running” during the Kenosha camp, according to lawsuit. He was also forced through the “car wash” in which players had to push through naked players to get to the showers. He also had to drink a sports drink till he vomited during the “Gatorade shake challenge.”
Later in his time at Northwestern, Long was elected by his teammates to participate in a leadership council on the football team. After he was on the council, he said he tried to bring forward concerns to head coach Pat Fitzgerald, but he was told to blow it off and not make a big deal about it, his lawsuit states.
After a season-ending hamstring injury, Long was often called an “eater and sh-tter” because his only value to the team was consuming food and using the toilet, the lawsuit says.
John Doe 2’s complaints were similar. During his first season in 2015, he said he was forced through the “car wash” at the Kenosha camp, and he had to do workouts and run drills while naked. He was “run” more than 10 times in the span of six months.
Their allegations detail similar abuse alleged in recent lawsuits from other former players.
These are the third and fourth lawsuits filed by Crump alleging abuse. He filed three last week on behalf of Simba Short, who played defense for Northwestern from 2015-2016, John Doe 1, a player on the team from 2015-2018, and Lloyd Yates, a former quarterback.
Three lawsuits by unnamed former NU football players who allege similar abuse on the team were filed by the Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard law firm.
Northwestern’s hazing scandal broke July 7 when the university published the summary of an internal investigation into allegations of hazing on the football team.
The school suspended Fitzgerald, then fired him after the student newspaper published accounts of hazing from two players. Northwestern also discontinued the Kenosha football training camp.
The school has said it is implementing reporting tools, locker room monitoring and anti-hazing training.
