Introducing Our New Podcast, Roughhousing

Examining the trouble with hazing in high school sports

Hi everybody, After over a year of production, we’re proud to release our new narrative podcast series, Roughhousing. Our producer, host, and writer Iggy Monda has spent the year examining the troubling issue of hazing in high school sports and how it has become a nationwide epidemic. To give you a sense of what to expect, I’m turning over the newsletter this week to Iggy. I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful weekend. See you next week!

-Joe

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A couple of years ago, when the world was first under attack from an invisible enemy and we were all forced indoors, a friend of mine shot me a text. He asked me if I wanted to hear a story. His tale took place in his hometown of Mobile, Ala., and it was about a teenager, a football team and a hazing incident that went too far.

That was the first time I learned about Rodney Kim Jr. And without my friend’s story, I would never have gone down this cavernous rabbit hole of hazing or have met Rodney and his family.

In some ways, I could relate to Rodney. He was a teenager with enormous sports dreams. When I was a kid, I kept telling myself that I was the second-coming of my idol, my captain, Derek Jeter. When I never made the Big Leagues—or any leagues, for that matter—I convinced myself it was because he’s 6’3’’, and…..let’s just say I’m not.

Rodney also wanted to get on a MLB roster, but his number one goal was to be an NFL quarterback. Rodney told me that when he was younger, his dream was to sling the football like recently crowned Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes and my boss, otherwise known as the GOAT by others, Tom Brady. In the spring of 2018, a 14-year old Rodney was practicing with his high school’s varsity football team. He thought he was on his way to the show.

But then he got hazed.

Rodney’s incident was brutal—and I can say that with full conviction because there’s a video of it. Over a dozen of the varsity players kicked, punched and jumped on Rodney. They broke his wrist, gave him a concussion, and hurt his back so badly that doctors advised that he stop playing any contact sports—like football—ever again.

Rodney got jumped nearly five years ago now, but the pain has stuck with him ever since.

“I'm still just barely getting over this,” he told me in my first interview with him back in 2021, more than three years after his incident. “I can't get over it. It's hard. I've tried praying. I've tried smoking. I've tried drinking. I've tried sex. I tried the whole nine… I can so much as smell something that reminds me of that day, and I'm instantly pissed. I'm instantly shutting down. I don't want to talk.”

“The hazing is over with, but shit, it feels like I'm steadily being hazed to this day.”

Rodney’s story is far from uncommon. When I first started this project, I thought I might find just a handful of hazing stories in high schools. I didn’t expect to find hundreds. They happen in every sport, in every state and in every kind of community.

Maybe you’ve heard about something like it in your town. Maybe you’ve even gone through it yourself. I know I have.

We’re in a moment in America where what’s ok and what isn’t – in relationships, at work, in our schools – is being re-examined and redefined. It’s time to bring hazing into that conversation.

So, I want to introduce you to a six-episode series that hopefully gets that ball rolling. It’s called Roughhousing. My team and I talked to athletes, coaches, parents, lawyers, and even a presidential candidate because the truth is a lot more people than you realize have their own hazing story. It could have happened at a baseball camp or after water polo practice or in an auditorium following debate team prep. Sometimes people don’t see it happening. Sometimes they allow it to happen because it’s just the way things have always been. But why? And at what cost?  

Our first episode of Roughhousing just dropped and is available wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you'll listen and join in on the conversation.