Brooke Bean couldn’t believe what she was hearing while talking with her former teammates. Then, when she saw the photos for herself, Bean was utterly “shocked.”

What she saw were members of the Northwestern women’s soccer team allegedly hazing its newcomers.

The photos, 16 of them in all, were displayed on BadJocks.com and depicted alleged initiation rituals with players in their underwear, dressed in costumes, blindfolded with their hands bound by athletic tape, consuming alcohol and performing sexually suggestive acts at a party on August 29.

“After the initial shock, I went to different emotions of disappointment and then sadness,” said Bean, Communication ’01. “I didn’t want people to think of this when they think of Northwestern women’s soccer.”

Those same feelings are what prompted Erin Ekeberg, one of Bean’s former teammates, to write an e-mail co-signed by Bean and 33 other former NU women’s soccer players to several local and national media outlets Wednesday.

The letter addressed a number of issues but dealt primarily with denying rumors that a “tradition of hazing” existed in the program.

Ekeberg said she was not prompted by the athletic department to send out the release and added that she has not had any contact with anyone from the university about the alleged incident.

“Some of the stuff that’s been written in the press has been sort of speculating that (the alleged hazing) is representative of the program, and that’s just not true,” said Ekeberg, a Weinberg ’01 graduate.

“This is a program that we love and are still really attached to.”

Bean and Ekeberg said they neither experienced nor carried out any hazing in their time at NU.

“The only thing we did was have an unwritten team rule about the freshmen carrying the ball bags out to practice,” said Bean. She added that she never heard about any hazing rituals from friends on other teams at NU.

University policies on hazing weren’t talked about in great detail, but their importance was understood by everyone on the team, Bean said.

The main topic of discussion during Bean and Ekeberg’s time at NU was point-shaving scandals involving the basketball and football teams.

“There were lots of sports seminars with the athletic department about gambling,” Bean said. “We never had a sit-down talk about hazing because it was never part of the environment here.”

Bean and Ekeberg also acknowledged that because of the generally small amount of contact between coaches and their players, this type of activity could slip under the radar.

“For the majority of the day, the team isn’t in the presence of the coaching staff,” said Ekeberg, who was a team captain and the team’s goaltender her final three years at NU.

“What the coaches can do is set the expectations and provide leadership, but they certainly can’t control what the team ultimately does.”

NU women’s soccer coach Jenny Haigh could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the NU athletic community, a cloud of scrutiny stemming from alleged hazing moved in at other schools across the nation with Wednesday’s release on BadJocks.com of the “Dirty Dozen.”

Photos of various athletic teams obtained from online hosting sites were displayed prominently, from the Wake Forest volleyball team to the Catholic University women’s lacrosse team.

“While the photos appear to be nearly three years old, we plan to talk with each person involved,” said Wake Forest Director of Media Relations Dean Buchan, who added that the school does not plan to speak with other universities implicated for alleged hazing.

“Hazing is not tolerated here. There’s no reason to consult any other schools on their policies.”

Reach Zach Silka at [email protected].