“The hazing of rookies, by spanking them, sometimes with a sandal, was completely unacceptable,” Margaret Brogan, the arbitrator, wrote last spring (documents via Philly.com). “His description of what he did was quite unnerving, especially when he described how he put his hand in a bucket of ice water to ease his pain, obviously because he was hitting the young people so hard.”

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Nowak also required players to run 10 miles in 80-degree weather without water and swept concussions under the rug. “Nowak created an environment where players felt the need to hide or mask concussions,” the team’s lawyers wrote in the documents. “Indeed, the record evidence established that Nowak vilified players who suffered from concussion symptoms.”

Nowak, who was fired in June 2012, was under contract through 2015 and sued the team a month later. His lawyers claimed this week that the arbitrator was biased and that his firing was unfair. His representatives have not responded to requests for comment.

Nowak, in the court documents, claims that rookie hazing also included joking, singing, dancing and paddling of rookies and that he had gotten pre-approval from the team’s former president, Tom Veit, and from former chief executive Nick Sakiewicz. In the documents, he does not deny placing his hand in water after the spankings and says that videotapes of the hazing were shown to Sakiewicz and others and that Sakiewicz approved.

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Nowak acknowledged not fully understanding concussion protocol, saying in the documents: “So, as I said, I might not understand protocol, which I know what is the protocol, but it was not that I disobeyed any kind of regulations and rules of Major League Soccer concerning concussions.”