If you were expecting interim Northwestern football coach David Braun to mention the word “hazing’’ during a Big Ten Media Days press conference Wednesday, you were sorely disappointed, not to mention hopelessly naive.
The chances of Braun addressing the specifics of the school’s scandal were zero. But some compassion toward the former players who have made the allegations of sexualized hazing would have been nice, no matter how broadly or vaguely the compassion were offered. Or, short of that, some tough talk about an end to hazing at Northwestern would have been good.
But, no. Nothing.
Whether it was a calculated strategy or not, Braun used the first 10 minutes of his 15-minute question-and-answer session with reporters to make an opening statement. That left time for four questions, and one of them dealt with the difficulty of playing in challenging weather conditions. I thought Braun was going to kiss the guy who asked about the wind and not, say, “dry humping.’’
As he mentioned in his filibuster, I mean preamble, this is not how he envisioned becoming a head coach. He replaces Pat Fitzgerald, who was fired after an NU investigation backed up a former player’s contention that there had been hazing in the program. Since then, a growing number of lawsuits have been filed. Each day seems to bring a new, unsavory allegation.
Braun started work as Northwestern’s defensive coordinator in January, and his relative newness to the program had to be one of the factors in his ascension to interim head coach. Six months wouldn’t seem to be long enough to be let into the hazing fun, but what do I know? One of the lawsuits claims that two assistant coaches were hazed in the same manner as the players, which is to say that a group of players held them down and “[rubbed] their genital areas against the [person’s] genitals, face, and buttocks while rocking back and forth.”
On Wednesday, Braun did what you’d expect a typical myopic, tone-deaf football coach to do. He talked about the opportunity his players had to harness the “adversity’’ they were facing and to use it to have a successful season. I could give you some examples of adversity stemming from the hazing scandal — the emotional scars of getting “dry humped’’ by fellow teammates being one of them. Current players dealing with the fallout of the scandal would be way down the list of challenges.
But Braun is a football coach, and football coaches look for anything to motivate their troops.
“A lot of people have been impacted by decisions made, by the decisions that have been made over the course of the last couple weeks, and our guys right now in that facility are going through a lot,’’ he said. “We have an opportunity to either run from that or an opportunity to truly stare that adversity in the face, stare it down, and go attack this opportunity to make this fall an incredible story that truly embodies what this team is all about.
“I’ve challenged them with that, and I can say that they have responded to that challenge in an absolutely inspiring fashion.’’
This really is a no-win situation for Braun, and that’s not a joke about the Wildcats’ 1-11 record last season. He won’t be able to make anyone forget about the unpleasantness of the past weeks and years. The hazing scandal will be there, win or lose on the football field.
But it would have been nice of him to more directly acknowledge that some people might have been hurt. He could have said it in a way that wouldn’t bring on more lawsuits or upset his players. A little empathy can go a long way.
But, again, no.
“The circumstances surrounding our family’s opportunity in being elevated to interim head coach were not dream-like scenarios, but they have done one thing: They have crystallized our family’s purpose,’’ Braun said. “As a family, our mission, Kristin and I truly believe that football is the ultimate vehicle to have a positive impact on young men.’’
Speaking of vehicles, one of the alleged hazing rituals in Northwestern’s football program was the “car wash,’’ which entailed “players lining up, standing naked and spinning around the entrance of the showers so that all freshman players were forced to rub up against the line of men to get to their showers.”
Maybe football isn’t always the noble pursuit Braun thinks it is.
It’s too bad that the people who came before him failed in their responsibility to protect players. But he should have recognized those players Wednesday. He should have recognized their adversity, the real kind.
