Earlier this week, an ESPN article reported that deceased FAMU drum major Robert Champion was a member of an underground student organization named the Red Dawg Order. The Florida Times-Union previously reported that Champion was a Red Dawg in an article published on Feb. 4th.The Red Dawg Order is a group that has a reputation for hazing. Back in December 2011, three men who were alleged members of the Red Dawg Order were booked on charges that they hazed Marching 100 student Bria Hunter. Hunter suffered a broken thigh and blood clouts after being fist-punched and beaten with a metal ruler during an unauthorized initiation process.
Times-Union reporter Topher Sanders interviewed two of the Red Dawg Order’s nine founders who said they were embarrassed by what has happened to the group. They told him they created the Red Dawgs in 1994 as a way of bringing together Georgia students in the Marching 100.
According to Sanders’ coverage, “the group helped new students with navigating financial aid, picking classes and studying music.”
“I would like for the Red Dawgs to return those original principles and even be more than that,” said FAMU alumnus and Red Dawg co-founder Jerrico Johnson. “I would like them to continue assisting each other and helping others, and using music to do that. I’d like for them to be the standard for excellence and not the excuse for why negative and derogatory activities are happening in bands.”