Have You Been A College Football Hostess? We Want To Hear About It

It should be no surprise that part of the latest Title IX lawsuit against Baylor—which asserts that football players committed 52 acts of rape in four years—brought up the college-athletics tradition of hostesses. College football history suggests they started at Alabama with a group dubbed Bryant’s Angels, though they later ditched that name for the ’Bama Belles. The names have changed, but the idea remains the same: When recruiting young men, what better way to do it than to have pretty women showing them around?

Another part of college football history are the stories about the job has been about more than just showing them around. The University of Colorado had hostesses whose jobs were to show recruits a good time; that detail came out in a lawsuit in which two women said they were raped by football players at a party for recruits, which Colorado settled for $2.8 million. In 2002, women said sex was a part of recruiting visits to Oregon. Stories have come out from Arizona State, Tennessee, and Oklahoma State. And there are also the women who have said that any suggestions they were encouraged to have sex with recruits couldn’t be further from the truth. That happened with Oklahoma State. It’s already happened with Baylor.

What was your experience as a college hostess? We’d like to know. You can reach out to me directly at diana@deadspin.com or to the whole staff at tips@deadspin.com. You also can call our tips line at (347) 746-8471. Want something more secure? Try our SecureDrop System.