Hobbs: Champion’s Red Dawg membership shows that he wasn’t a "stickler"

Chuck Hobbs, a Tallahassee attorney who represented FAMU’s recently retired ex-band director, says that the inconvenient information about deceased drum major Robert Champion shouldn’t be ignored. Champion died on Nov. 19 in Orlando after a hazing ritual called “Crossing Bus C.”

Champion’s parents say they believe he was hazed more severely than the other “Bus C” pledges because he was a “stickler for the rules.” But Hobbs says that Champion couldn’t have been a stickler for the rules while also reportedly supporting the Red Dawg Order and the “Bus C” group, two unauthorized organizations with long records of hazing .

Hobbs wrote:

Champion family lawyer Christopher Chestnut, a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity himself, has argued that "Champion was a stickler for the rules" and the "poster child for anti-hazing."

Well, that may not have been the case.

Champion was a confirmed member of the Red Dawg Order, a shadow group within the band that has been linked to hazing. 

Further, fellow drum major Keon Hollis recently stated on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that both he and Champion went upstairs after the band was dismissed by White on Nov. 18, changed clothes and willingly went downstairs to participate in "Crossing Bus C," which, according to Hollis, involved running from the front of the bus to the back while withstanding physical blows.

Hollis made it through — Champion did not.

The Meredith Act that criminalizes hazing does not take into account Champion's unwise decision, but any suit against the university or officials certainly will. While we all lament the fact that Champion is dead, I cannot help but aver that had he been the stickler to the rules that his lawyer suggests, he would still be alive this very day.

Read Hobbs’ full opinion piece here.