ROUGHHOUSING PODCAST
Roughhousing Trailer
Roughhousing is a new narrative series examining hazing culture in high school sports today. Host Iggy Monda takes listeners inside locker rooms to hear deeply personal stories from kids who have been hazed, parents who have fought for accountability, people who have hazed others, and coaches who are afraid of what their players might do when they’re not looking. Ultimately, he asks why hazing is so ingrained in American culture and what it says about us.
ROUGHHOUSING Part 1: Hell Week
What does hazing look like in high school sports today? Our series begins in Mobile, Alabama, where Rodney Kim, Jr. was a freshman with dreams of making the varsity football team. But a brutal locker room initiation changed everything.
ROUGHHOUSING Part 2: The Line
What if the person being hazed is kinda having fun? Is all hazing a bad thing? A lot of guys on Rodney’s team say the locker room “tussling” just went too far in Rodney’s case. In this episode, host Iggy Monda looks at the range of hazing in U.S. culture, as well as in his own past, to try to find the line between horseplay and abuse.
ROUGHHOUSING Part 3: The Coach
What role do coaches and other school leaders have in a hazing incident? And how much oversight can parents expect when their kids participate in school sports? We look at Rodney’s coach, his background, and ask what, if anything, could have been done differently.
ROUGHHOUSING Part 4: The Snitch
We’ve all heard that ‘snitches get stitches.' It’s a rule on the streets but also on many sports teams. So what happens when kids speak out about being hazed in high school?
ROUGHHOUSING Part 5: The Good Fight
When a violent hazing occurs, the natural impulse is to search for ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This effort to stop hazing has been going on in the U.S. for decades. But how effective has it been? And is it even possible to change something so ingrained in our culture?
The trauma from violent hazing can lodge itself inside the victim, metastasizing in the years that follow. In our final episode, we’ll find out how Rodney, as well as other people who have more distance from their hazing incidents, have dealt with it years down the road.