Jay Novacek is well known as the Hall of Fame tight end of the great Dallas Cowboys teams of the 1990s. His son Blake had dreams of a fame in the same sphere of sports, but as a broadcaster or Sportscenter anchor.
Those hopes have been reportedly dashed by a disturbing hazing incident at the Beta Theta Pi fraternity chapter of the University of Oklahoma that Blake Novacek alleges left him brain-damaged, on the road to half-blindness and institutionalized with thoughts of suicide.
The incident, which allegedly occurred in fall 2015 and was detailed in a lengthy feature by the Dallas Observer, is now the subject of a $10 million lawsuit filed by Novacek over claims of assault and negligence and yet another story of hazing gone wrong in the insular world of college fraternities.
What Blake Novacek alleges happened at Oklahoma
Novacek says he chose the University of Oklahoma for its broadcast journalism program and a promise of his own radio show and a job at Oklahoma-owned television network SoonerVision. He was a budding talent in the world of sports broadcasting, having already hosted a one-hour fantasy football show at his local ESPN affiliate as a high-schooler.
Once on campus, Novacek also decided to pledge at Beta Theta Pi. In the article, he said he was drawn by the fraternity’s absurdly opulent facilities (their $11 million house can be seen in this video), an aggressive recruiting pitch and a promise that the chapter was “committed to being ‘100 percent free’ of alcohol, drugs and hazing.”
That last part apparently rang very, very false.
As an 18-year-old pledge, Novacek said he and his fellow freshman were soon pushed into demeaning activities and forced to learn menial facts about every member of the fraternity. While definitely hazing and already breaking the promise that Novacek received, it was nothing compared to what would happen after Oklahoma football’s upset loss to Texas.
From the Dallas Observer:
At some point the following week, Novacek says he was summoned to the Beta house via GroupMe message, but this appearance wasn’t like the others. Most, he said, occurred around 9 p.m. and this one, best he can recall, was past midnight. This time, he was blindfolded and a pillowcase was placed over his head.
Novacek says he was ushered up some stairs, then down a hallway, where he heard whimpering and screaming. Alarmed, he took off his pillowcase and peeked under his blindfold to see a pledge on the floor having a panic attack.
Eventually, Novacek claimed he ended up alone in a room with fraternity member Shane Muselmann, who the pledge believed had a grudge against him.
According to Novacek, Muselmann ordered him to put his blindfold and pillowcase back on. That’s when Muselmann swung the bat and hit Novacek in the stomach, just under his ribs. The blow caused him to first lurch backward into the wall, then lose his balance and fall. On the way down, Novacek believes the back of his head smacked into a marble window ledge. (Muselmann denies this.)
“I didn’t go unconscious at first, but I was out of it,” Novacek says. “I don’t know how long I laid there. Could’ve been one minute, 10 minutes or hours.”
Novacek said he eventually woke up on a couch in the fraternity’s basement and walked back to his dorm room with a splitting headache, but not before receiving a threat from another fraternity member, Gavin Martindale.
“Hey, what happened to you last night?” said Martindale, immediately providing Novacek his desired answer before the pledge could fully comprehend the question. “If you talk about any of this, we’ll have you kicked off campus. You’ll be done. We’ll ruin you and your family.”
What happened to Novacek after the incident?
Three years after the incident, Novacek is reportedly still feeling the effects of the brain damage he sustained that night. And they’ve nearly ruined his life.
According to the article, Novacek’s speech therapist estimates his vocabulary and quick-recall time have diminished by as much as 84 percent, his eye doctor predicts blurred vision in his left eye is a precursor to going blind in that eye and his neurologist believes that the brain trauma left him with “the brain of a 65-year-old.”
“Imagine having a thick rubber band real tight around your head,” he says of his incessant headache. “Now add 40 more around that one. Welcome to my world.”
Novacek has been reportedly diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and severe anxiety disorder. He has dropped out of Oklahoma and has been institutionalized twice, once after expressing thoughts of suicide. He is described by friends and loved ones as a completely changed person.
The fraternity has denied nearly every allegation of assault and negligence that night.
In the aftermath of whatever happened that night, Novacek described an uncomfortable detente of him not wanting to tell the authorities what he had gone through and the fraternity keeping him at arm’s length before eventually removing him from the pledge class.
Per the report, when Novacek finally spoke to a lawyer after getting pulled over by police with marijuana he used to treat his pain, he decided to move forward with the lawsuit.
Potentially the latest fraternity scandal
As disturbing and disheartening as Novacek’s story is, it’s familiar enough in today’s reported landscape of fraternity scandals. The article notes that Beta Theta Pi has contributed more than its fair share there, with the University of Oregon chapter being disbanded in 2016 due to hazing and 18 members of the Penn State chapter being arrested in the wrongful death of a pledge in 2017 after allegedly forcing him to ingest 18 drinks of 80-proof vodka.
The Novacek incident also occurred the same year another fraternity scandal plagued Oklahoma, when the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter was taped singing its infamous song. That chapter was eventually suspended, while Novacek and the Beta chapter still sit in court waiting for a resolution.
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