Content warning: This story addresses attempts of self-harm and allegations of sexual abuse and may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.
A fifth former Northwestern football player has filed a lawsuit against the university over hazing. Simba Short, a former linebacker from California who briefly played from 2015 to 2016 but never saw game action due to injury, is the second player to file such a lawsuit publicly under his name.
The accusations are similar to those made by former quarterback Lloyd Yates, who filed a lawsuit earlier this week. That lawsuit mentioned Short by name. In Thursday’s filing, Short alleges that the culture of hazing led him to commit self-harm.
“For two months prior to his retirement in 2016, Simba had become withdrawn from the team, only attending therapy sessions,” the suit says. “Simba did not attend any practices, films or other team events because of the trauma and fear due to hazing incidents that occurred during his time at Northwestern University. While Simba was skipping practices and other team events, no person from the coaching staff met with Simba to ask why he wasn’t attending these mandatory team events. To the coaches, Simba was a ‘shitter and eater,’ and they did not care what he had to say.
“The acts described throughout this complaint caused Simba to feel depressed, anxious, feel worthless and ultimately led to a mental health crisis that culminated in his attempting self-harm in the Spring 2016 and an emergency hospitalization. It wasn’t until after Simba was hospitalized in 2016 that (Pat Fitzgerald) sat down with him and suggested that Simba could medically retire from the football program. Not long after, Simba made the difficult decision to medically retire from football.”
The lawsuit says that while Short recovered from a neck surgery in July 2015, he believes he wasn’t hazed only because upperclassmen were told not to “mess with him” because of the surgery. Once he returned to football activities, he was told by upperclassmen that he was “healthy enough to be ran.” Later that week in spring 2016, four or five upperclassmen cornered Short in the locker room and “ran” him, defined as rubbing their genitals on another player.
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Short was emotionally traumatized by the incident and considered quitting the team, according to the lawsuit. The suit also noted hazing against Short in the form of forced alcohol drinking and that hazing was known to happen on “Bus 2,” which had several strength coaches on it. He attempted self-harm that spring and medically retired from football. He returned to Northwestern to finish his degree from 2019 through 2021.
“Simba entered Northwestern as an outstanding freshman, full of promise on the football field and in the classroom,” attorney Ben Crump said in a statement. “By the end of his freshman year, this abusive culture had broken him. We are seeking justice for him and other student-athletes who were forced to live in fear and suffer at the hands of the University leadership. Simba is a hero of this MeToo movement of college sports, and we applaud him for stepping forward to tell his story.”
Northwestern spokesperson Jon Yates told The Athletic earlier this week the school is “working to ensure we have in place appropriate accountability” for its athletic department. “We will engage an outside firm to evaluate the sufficiency of our accountability mechanism, and to detect threats to the welfare of our student-athletes.”
Short’s lawsuit, like the others, seeks damages greater than $50,000.
Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said Wednesday that the conference has not opened an investigation into the program, instead letting Northwestern handle its two-pronged investigation into the program and athletic department first. University president Michael Schill has said both of those findings will be released publicly.
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(Photo: Michael Hickey / Getty Images)