Parents blame college hazing for Tampa teen's death

A 19-year-old university student from Tampa who died in November was repeatedly tackled by fraternity members who were hazing him at an off-campus farm, his parents said in a lawsuit filed Friday.

Harrison Kowiak, a Wharton High School graduate, died after a head injury caused a severe brain hemorrhage, the lawsuit states. The complaint seeks damages and blames the Theta Chi fraternity, the fraternity's members and Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C.

"You send your own flesh and blood to a university or school or college, you expect them to come back and gain a few pounds or an earring, but my God, you don't expect your own child back home in a coffin," Kowiak's father, Brian, told The Tampa Tribune.

Raleigh, N.C.-based attorney David Kirby said the death was part of a long history of hazing at Lenoir-Rhyne.

Brian Kowiak said he thinks his son and another pledge were told to walk across a field in November 2008 and that fraternity members repeatedly tackled the pledges during an initiation called "bulldogging."

Harrison Kowiak was a 160-pound sophomore and a member of the golf team. His parents say some fraternity members were Lenoir-Rhyne football players who weighed more than 250 pounds.

Prosecutors have said investigators found no basis for criminal charges in the death.

Neither the Indianapolis-based fraternity nor a university spokesman immediately returned a call from the Associated Press.

Fraternity members eventually realized Kowiak was badly injured but attempted to get him to stand up and walk until he collapsed, the lawsuit states. They drove him to a Hickory hospital and said he had been injured in an on-campus flag-football accident.

Kowiak was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and died there the following day.

"We need public attention on this to bring awareness to the fact that the event should not have happened," Brian Kowiak said.