Content warning: This story addresses allegations of sexual abuse and a suicide attempt and may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.
Former Northwestern offensive lineman Ramon Diaz will file a lawsuit against the school alleging racial mistreatment and hazing during his time on the football team, he said Wednesday.
“My experience playing football at Northwestern University haunts me to this day,” Diaz, who played for the Wildcats from 2005 to 2008, said. “I never will forget the mistreatment I experienced for those four years.”
Diaz was joined at a news conference Wednesday by lawyers Patrick Salvi and Parker Steiner of Chicago law firm Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard. He alleged members of the football team mocked his Mexican heritage and forced him to participate in sexualized acts such as “the car wash,” where naked players were forced to rub against other naked players’ genitalia while entering the shower.
“The car wash” has been detailed by other former football players who have come forward about their experiences with alleged hazing in the football program.
Diaz also said that as a freshman an upperclassman forced him to sit in a chair in the locker room at the team’s training camp in Kenosha, Wis., while the words Cinco de Mayo were shaved into the hair on the back of his head as the team watched.
“I often ask myself why that symbol? Why me?” Diaz said. “You could have chosen anything and that’s what you chose to do, the seniors who were a part of this. People watched and no one did anything. … Who decided that this was the standard to take care of athletes, people who we admired and respected as the upperclassmen and obviously the coaches who allowed this to happen? For me, I demand that someone take accountability for what happened to me during my freshman year.”
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Additionally, Diaz alleged former offensive line coach Bret Ingalls repeatedly insulted his family’s cultural heritage, and former tight ends coach Adam Cushing “often times joined in the laughter” when people would make fun of Diaz’s heritage.
“The bigotry I suffered chipped away at my self-worth, my dignity and my desire to play the game of football. A game I loved,” Diaz said.
Diaz said he attempted suicide by taking painkillers in 2007 due to the bigotry and racism he experienced. He began seeing a psychologist on campus in 2007 but continued to interact with Ingalls and his teammates for three years, during which time Diaz’s depression symptoms and suicidal thoughts increased.
Diaz also called out James Patton, Northwestern’s then-offensive coordinator, for visiting his home on recruiting trips when Diaz was a high school junior and senior and persuading Diaz and his family that his health and well-being would be prioritized at Northwestern and that he would be treated well as both a human being and a football player. He said that was not his experience.
“An institution that enables coaches to destroy the self-worth of an athlete must be held accountable,” Diaz said. “No one stopped it. I think that’s worth repeating again and again. No one did anything. Northwestern University and the board of trustees created an environment that enables perpetrators disguised as coaches to groom, exploit and violate the human dignity of many of their players of color.”
Diaz called for the NCAA to hold Northwestern accountable for the hazing and mistreatment students have faced within its athletic program. Last week, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said the conference will defer to Northwestern’s two external reviews of the athletic program before the league possibly takes action.
On Tuesday, Northwestern announced it tabbed former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to lead a review of its athletic department processes and culture, with the results of the investigation to be made public. The announcement marked the latest step Northwestern has taken to address the hazing scandal that has engulfed the university in the last month. Seven former football players and one former volleyball player have already filed lawsuits against Northwestern to date, while attorneys representing former Northwestern athletes have implicated the baseball and softball programs as well.
Northwestern hired an outside firm to investigate reports of hazing and released its initial report on July 7, in which it announced corrective steps such as establishing a locker room monitor for football, in-person hazing training from outside experts, the closing of Camp Kenosha and a two-week suspension for football coach Pat Fitzgerald. But the school didn’t make its specific findings public. The scandal then erupted when a whistleblower provided details of sexualized hazing in a July 8 story published by The Daily Northwestern, and since, multiple former athletes have come forward with their own accounts of alleged misconduct.
Fitzgerald was subsequently fired on July 10. Since then, football players and volleyball coach Shane Davis have elected not to appear at their sports’ respective conference media day events.
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(Photo: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)
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