Thanks to the NCAA and Alfred University in 1999, the public and educators such as myself who write about hazing have a clearer idea of how prevalent hazing is in the culture of student-athletes. Nearly 80 percent of all athletes admitted submitting to some sort of initiation ritual, and many athletes said that alcohol, nudity, sexual simulation, hitting, and even improper sexual touching were part of their rookie experience.

The term "initiation," of course, was the euphemism used far more often than the term "hazing," but the 1999 study gave a clear definition of hazing. To wit, hazing is "any humiliating or dangerous activity expected of (athletes) to join a group, regardless of (their) willingness to participate."

That study was groundbreaking, and it has had an impact. Long resistant to any survey that revealed the extent to which hazing exists in fraternities and sororities, national Greek organizations now have permitted a University of Maine, Orono, professor
to conduct a similar survey to assess how problematic hazing is in Greek groups. The only way to effectively combat a problem is to know how big or small that problem is.

Moreover, the Greek world under the direction of such educational entities as the Association of Fraternity Advisers (AFA), has taken the unprecedented step of organizing a task force composed of its most senior members to brainstorm ways to end the hazing activities that have seen at least one death (often many deaths) every year from 1970 to 2004.

And on November 9, the AFA and partner groups will sponsor a National Hazing Prevention Symposium at Purdue University. Invited participants include Mary Wilfert of the NCAA and Elliott Hopkins of the National Federation of State High School Associations. In effect, what we have is the first attempt for fraternal groups to partner with athletics groups, anti-hazing activist groups, educators and hazing researchers to see if there is common ground to attack hazing's more lethal practices in an attempt to end the degradation, abuse and occasional carnage.

I ask NCAA faculty athletics representatives to do three things, and I am asking this as a faculty member in the spirit of collegiality.

The first is to authorize a follow-up study to the 1999 report that serves a comparative purpose and lets researchers know whether hazing is on the rise, decline, or has stabilized. The immediate need for such a study is for researchers and the public to gain insight into the 70 or more incidents of sexual hazing allegations and/or convictions that have tarnished high-school athletics since 1995. (College sexual incidents have been far less numerous, but still problematic due to their traumatic effect on victims.)

The second is for FARs to urge the NCAA to act in the best interests of collegiate education by launching anti-hazing educational programs on a national scale.

Such a campaign would include 15- or 30-second public announcements by prominent NCAA coaches and athletes that send the message that hazing is all about abuse, not discipline. In the 1920s, deaths caused by freshman-sophomore physical hazing activities were the most common form of hazing death. At that time, the voices of prominent college athletes such as Branch McCracken (later the basketball coach at Indiana University, Bloomington) made it clear that hazing was wrong and cowardly. After the 1920s, only one freshman-sophomore death occurred.

Public announcements by high-status athletes would not only resonate with other collegiate athletes and coaches, but also with Greeks and high-school athletes who might heed such a clarion call for an end to hazing abuses. Such a message certainly is absent in professional sports where, reinforced by sensational media coverage, non-criminal but silly hazing initiations are perceived by the public to be the norm, if not actually the reality.

The third is for a collective statement by NCAA faculty representatives that hazing is at best unethical and, at worst, criminal or potentially malicious -- particularly when alcohol is involved. The alternative to hazing, recommended by the NCAA-Alfred study in 1999, is that each school find welcoming and positive ways to bring first-year players into the fold. Schools such as the University of Michigan now incorporate anti-hazing educational programming into larger educational programming aimed at team captains.

What NCAA faculty reps need to offer now is not just guidance, but action. Hazing policies alone won't end the problem. What's needed is a collective societal push to say that hazing has no place in our schools and, by extension, in our sports programs.

The NCAA has enough power and status to lend its collective faculty voices to back its individual member institutions and fraternal groups now partnering to end hazing. If not, the public and media almost certainly will decide, should an egregious hazing incident or high-profile hazing death occur, that blame should settle on the NCAA because a criminal or willful act occurred on the NCAA's watch.

Don't believe it? Eventually, military hazing ended up square on the gold-barred shoulders of the Pentagon's brass. Eventually, scores of deaths in individual fraternities ended up with the governing National Interfraternity Conference head facing tough questions from microphone-bearing national reporters from evening news programs.

Right now, absolutely no media or public pressure is on the NCAA.

The right thing can be done quietly and with the satisfaction of all faculty reps knowing that they've done so out of a sense of sportsmanship and fair play, not because of outside pressures.

In the NCAA, you have dedicated professionals who work hard to educate themselves on such matters as hazing research. In the NCAA's 1999 study, you have contributed immeasurably to hazing research.

But you can do more, honorable faculty reps.

In my opinion, you must do more.

Hank Nuwer is an assistant professor at Franklin College and a part-time lecturer at Indiana University School of Journalism (IUPUI). He has written on hazing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, American Legion and Harper's. He also has commented on hazing for ESPN SportsCenter, CNN and ABC's 20/20.