Lloyd Yates hasn’t seen a football game in years.
Friends and family always thought that was weird. After all, Yates was a “sports junkie” as a kid, a star quarterback at Oak Park River Forest High School who made headlines after he got an offer to play for Northwestern.
But his time with the Wildcats was marked by degrading and sexually abusive harassment, he told the Tribune in an exclusive interview this week. The alleged assaults left him with nightmares and persistent fears. It’s even too much to watch football on TV these days.
“I’ve been conditioned to think that these things are normal, and that’s what happens in college football, that’s what happens in these locker rooms,” said Yates, 26. “And I think Northwestern still has a bit of work to do.” Do things right and make sure that culture doesn’t exist.”
Yates, who graduated in 2018, is one of a dozen former Northwestern players who have signed on as clients of attorneys Ben Crump and Steve Levin. They told the Tribune that they plan to file a lawsuit against the school following a harassment scandal that grew from the university’s head coach, Pat Fitzgerald.
“What they have had to endure is just humiliating and emotionally deeply damaging,” Crump said. “The sexual abuse is both shocking and inexcusable.”
A Northwestern spokesman declined to comment on the potential lawsuit, citing a policy that prohibits commenting on pending litigation.
In a statement, the school noted that it had opened an investigation into the allegations of harassment at short notice after complaints were received late last year.
“We have taken a number of other measures to remove victimization from our football program and we will introduce further measures in the coming weeks,” the statement said.
The allegations of bullying were backed up in a report commissioned by the school; It was not published, but the school did publish a synopsis. In a statement, University President Michael Schill said the investigation found 11 current or former players who confirmed the allegations.
The harassment scandal, which Schill admitted involved “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature,” sent shockwaves through the Northwestern community. The Daily Northwestern, a student newspaper, was the first to publicize a former player’s allegations of “outrageous and despicable” behavior. Former players have since told the Tribune that their experiences of bullying left them with lasting trauma.
Fitzgerald was initially suspended for two weeks and then fired outright after the article was published in the Daily Northwestern. His attorney told the Tribune last week that he was considering legal action for breach of contract.
Yates and his attorneys insisted that the culture of bullying transcended a single person or administrator.
“This isn’t about a single coach,” Levin said. “This is an institutional issue that we are tackling as an institutional issue that we believe many people either knew about or should know about.”
For Yates, attending Northwestern came naturally, he said.
Training camp in Wisconsin began not long after he graduated from high school, he said. Before he even arrived at the camp, he had already heard “horror stories” about what might happen there.
“You have to realize that we’re 17 (or) 18-year-olds, young freshmen, really excited, really worried,” he said. “We hear these different stories, we try to fit in … at the time it’s things you hear about, you don’t really believe are true, you don’t believe it’s going to happen to you. But you know, it’s happened to me and it’s happened to a lot of people in the culture.”
Yates described the harassment at the training camp as “ambushes” in the dormitories, which the players tried to prevent by locking or barricading their doors.
“We would be ambushed by ten different people and then they would come and hold one,” he said. “They put you in the doggy style position and then do a dry hump. The guys took turns and it’s just a very degrading, inhumane and embarrassing act.”
Yates also experienced sexualized bullying in the locker room, including a pre-training “ritual” in which teammates forced players to appear naked in front of everyone else.
As a freshman quarterback, Yates said he had to complete a quarterback center swap — which requires particularly close contact — naked.
“He snatched the football from me, just like you would see on Sunday, but I was in the dressing room simulating the act, with no clothes on,” he said. “Of course, having that experience before I had to go out onto the field and train with my teammates was very uncomfortable…it’s just humbling.”
Other clients have confirmed the general pattern of abuse, Crump and Levin told the Tribune. Sometimes the chicanes were triggered by mistakes on the pitch; The student newspaper Daily Northwestern was the first to report that the sexualized bullying practice called “running” was used to punish players for missteps.
Yates recalled a time when his teammates made him “run” because they thought he’d told a coach the team had partied outside the night before.
“(The coach) made us do extra exercises in the weight room for that. And that pointed to me as a target,” he said. “So when I went to the dressing room, I was attacked by my teammates because I had extra things to do in the training room.”
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Levin said the legal department plans to file a lawsuit against Northwestern “seeking an end to this type of behavior and seeking compensatory and possible punitive damages for the former players.”
“We want to send a message that this type of behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere, certainly not in collegiate sports. And it must be stopped immediately,” he said.
A separate lawsuit filed in Cook County court this week alleges that Fitzgerald and other senior university officials knew about and covered up sexual misconduct and racial discrimination.
Yates, meanwhile, said he decided to come forward in the hope that others would feel more comfortable sharing their stories, too.
“There’s a lot of denial, a lot of people saying we’re liars. I am not a liar. We’re not liars,” he said. “I know there are hundreds of men who will hopefully have the courage to speak their truth and speak their truth. And I know it’s uncomfortable. I know it’s embarrassing. I know it’s embarrassing. But I think that’s the first step to acknowledging and addressing that this exists.”
The Associated Press contributed to this.
Originally published: July 18, 2023 at 2:17 p.m