 Media Credit: Courtesy BadJocks.com
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Northwestern Athletic Director Mark Murphy has suspended the women's soccer team indefinitely, pending a Division of Student Affairs investigation of allegations that hazing took place at a party attended by several members of the team last year.
Monday's announcement followed the publication of 16 photos depicting NU women's soccer players in what appear to be initiation rituals on the Web site BadJocks.com. Players could be seen in their underwear, dressed in costumes, blindfolded with their hands bound by athletic tape and performing sexually suggestive acts, but there did not seem to be any foul play.
"I have asked all Athletic Department staff, team coaches and members of the team to cooperate fully in the investigation by Student Affairs," Murphy's press release said. "If the investigation shows that there has been a violation of Northwestern's policies, appropriate sanctions will be imposed and the Athletic Department may take additional action as well."
The athletic department had no further comment. Reached through e-mail, women's soccer coach Jenny Haigh, who guided the team to a 9-9-1 record last fall, said she had no comment.
None of the players contacted for this story wished to comment. The women's soccer team's roster has been removed from NU's official athletic Web site.
According to BadJocks publisher Bob Reno, the photos on display were part of a 46-picture album that he found on a public hosting site. Several names were listed in the caption info, which he crosschecked with the NU women's soccer roster.
Photograph captions on the public hosting site suggest that the photos were pulled from an account managed by Communication freshman Amanda Hoffman, though it cannot be verified whether she took or uploaded the pictures herself.
"There are literally tens of thousands of these pictures (from other schools) out there," Reno said. "It's something that happens at every school, in every sport, and the shocking thing is, they're all very much the same.
"But I think the thing that caught the attention of (hazing expert) Dr. (Susan) Lipkins and myself about these pictures was the blindfold and the hands-tying - there was something creepy about that."
Reno said the album was posted to the hosting space on Aug. 29, 2005. He also said he plans to release pictures on Wednesday from "at least a dozen" other colleges depicting similar initiation rituals.
