The story following my comments is from Swimming World's website. Hazing at Northwestern has a very long history. The Lamba Chi house was closed (I thikn inthe late 60s) because the rush committee tied several young pledges to posts inthe the lake. they didn't properly calculate about the tide and some of the guys drowned. Inthe late 70s a sororotiy house got in trouble because they had men in the private quarters to scare the new dwellars. Many of us who live in Illinois know some of the guys involved with this incident.
Northwestern's Men's Swim Team Punished for Hazing -- May 18, 2006
EVANSTON, Illinois, May 18. JUST days after it suspended its women's soccer team for hazing, Northwestern University has announced it took action against its men's swim team for an incident that took place last September. The university also punished several individuals who serve as the school's mascot. The hazing by the men's swim team, according to an Associated Press article, included underage drinking, swimming in Lake Michigan when the beach was closed and other behavior that went unspecified.
The members of the men's swim team were placed on disciplinary probation and required to perform a community service project and attend educational classes on hazing. The athletic department canceled a team training trip to Hawaii and some team members were not allowed to participate in one or two meets.
"Additional disciplinary action was taken against several members of the team, but federal law prohibits universities from releasing information about specific actions taken in regard to individual students," Mike Wolf, assistant athletic director for media services, said in a statement.
"Northwestern will not tolerate hazing of any kind. When it discovers allegations of hazing or other violations of student conduct regulations, the University will respond quickly and take the appropriate actions."
Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com
they didn't properly calculate about the tide and some of the guys drowned.
Tides in Lake Michigan? Come on now! :D Storm surge maybe?
The Northwestern swimming incident looks pretty overblown on paper, but I think it's just an example of universities' zero tolerance for this kind of thing now. Student athletes are just going to have to learn these things won't be tolerated, however innocent they feel they may have been.
Former Member
Now the CAU women's lacross.
Lake Michigan has a tide. It isn't great but thats why the Lamba house got busted. After Lamba was kicked off of campus, the building became the CSC house and housed a coop for environmentally interested students.
Many schools put a halt to that sort of behavior in the mid 60's after a drowning in a pond at, I believe, Villanova, during a hazing incident. I know Notre Dame stopped it in 1965, right before I would have been subject to it.
Of course, some things are going to happen, but increasingly, "stupid" drinking, whether underage or not, is causing problems and deaths. We know our daughter is sensible and hardly drinks at all, but were still very worried about what some of her "friends" might try to pull on her 21st birthday.
The Duke case points up what might happen if you continue to make stupid decisions. I have no particular opinion of that incident, but at the least they put themselves in a shaky situation.
If you want to provide bonding through physical duress, look for a service project like Habitat or a campus cleanup and drive the rookies hard. Then they will have both the safety of a well-supervised job and the "proof" of their worth. Then you can make them run across the campus in their underwear covered in shave cream and sprinkles!
Former Member
As the saying goes, "Absolute power Absolutly corups"
