“All we wanted to do was play ball,” Simba Short said Wednesday morning as he stood behind a lectern with three other former Northwestern football players.

       It was a reasonable request.

       Advertisement

       They had been recruited to Northwestern to do just that, after all, and were sold on the program by the coaches who brought them in.

       But here they stood in solidarity, describing the psychological and emotional pain they endured from entering a football culture described Wednesday as “toxic” and “systemic.” A game they’d played as little kids was now a reminder of a traumatic experience they couldn’t forget.