Northwestern fires head coach Pat Fitzgerald amid fallout from hazing scandal
Pat Fitzgerald’s time at Northwestern has come to an end.
Fitzgerald was fired as Northwestern’s head coach Monday amid the fallout of the hazing scandal in the Wildcats football program. Fitzgerald was a star linebacker for the Wildcats in the '90s who became his alma mater’s head coach in 2006.
Fitzgerald was initially hit with a two-week suspension without pay following an investigation into allegations of hazing within the football program. Three days later, following a story from The Daily Northwestern detailing the alleged hazing in the Wildcats' program, Fitzgerald has been removed from his role.
Northwestern president Michael Schill said the decision to fire Fitzgerald was his alone.
"The decision comes after a difficult and complex evaluation of my original discipline decision imposed last week on Coach Fitzgerald for his failure to know and prevent significant hazing in the football program," Schill wrote in a letter to the Northwestern community. "Over the last 72 hours, I have spent a great deal of time in thought and in discussions with people who love our University — the Chair and members of our Board of Trustees, faculty leadership, students, alumni and Coach Fitzgerald himself.
"I have also received many phone calls, text messages and emails from those I know, and those I don’t, sharing their thoughts. While I am appreciative of the feedback and considered it in my decision-making, ultimately, the decision to originally suspend Coach Fitzgerald was mine and mine alone, as is the decision to part ways with him."
Fitzgerald released a statement on Monday night to ESPN's Pete Thamel, and said he is taking "necessary steps to protect my rights in accordance with the law."
"Last Friday, Northwestern and I came to a mutual agreement regarding the appropriate resolution following the thorough investigation conducted by Ms. Hickey," Fitzgerald said, in part. "Therefore, I was surprised when I learned that the president of Northwestern unilaterally revoked our agreement without any prior notification and subsequently terminated my employment."
Northwestern, when it announced its suspension for Fitzgerald on Friday, said it did not find “sufficient evidence” that Fitzgerald or members of his coaching staff were aware of the hazing. However, investigators concluded that there were “significant opportunities” for the coaches to “discover and report the hazing conduct.”
Northwestern released only a summary of the investigation with very few details. Fitzgerald said in a statement Friday that he was “disappointed” to learn of the hazing allegations but maintained that he was unaware of the alleged incidents.
On Saturday, the day after the summary was released, an anonymous former Northwestern player described the alleged hazing acts to The Daily Northwestern, characterizing them as “vile and inhumane behavior.” The player also claimed that Fitzgerald was aware of the ongoing hazing and even encouraged it.
Later Saturday, after the story was published, Schill released a statement saying he “may have erred in weighing the appropriate sanction for Coach Fitzgerald.”
“The confidential report concluded that while there was corroborating evidence that hazing had occurred, there was no direct evidence that Coach Fitzgerald was aware of the hazing. In determining an appropriate penalty for the head coach, I focused too much on what the report concluded he didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known,” Schill said.
Schill said Monday he "only recently learned many of the details, including the complainant's identity." He spoke to the former player's parents on Friday and the complainant himself on Sunday.
"Since Friday, I have kept going back to what we should reasonably expect from our head coaches, our faculty and our campus leaders. And that is what led me to make this decision," Schill said. "The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team. The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others."
Schill said he received "hundreds and hundreds of emails" from former players and staff members supporting Fitzgerald. However, Schill said firing Fitzgerald is in "the best interests of the entire university."
"As much as Coach Fitzgerald has meant to our institution and our student-athletes, we have an obligation — in fact a responsibility — to live by our values, even when it means making difficult and painful decisions such as this one. We must move forward," Schill wrote.
"I recognize that my decision will not be universally applauded, and there will be those in our community who may vehemently disagree with it. Ultimately, I am charged with acting in the best interests of the entire university, and this decision is reflective of that. The damage done to our institution is significant, as is the harm to some of our students."
Fitzgerald, 48, finishes his time at Northwestern with a 110-101 record with two Big Ten West division titles and five bowl wins.
Former player details alleged hazing in Northwestern program
Northwestern said Friday that it had received an anonymous complaint with allegations of hazing in November. In January, the school publicly announced it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into the matter.
According to the investigative summary, the complainant's allegations "involved football players pressuring team members into participating in hazing activities." The alleged acts of hazing often occurred in the team locker room or during the team's training camp in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
In addition to Fitzgerald’s two-week suspension, which was set to begin immediately, Northwestern said it would discontinue holding training camp in Kenosha and mandate monitoring of the football locker room by “someone who doesn’t report to the football coaching staff.”
No details of the allegations were released in the summary — until the story in The Daily Northwestern was published Saturday.
If a player was selected for “running,” the player who spoke to The Daily said, they would be restrained by a group of 8-10 upperclassmen dressed in various “Purge-like” masks, who would then begin “dry-humping” the victim in a dark locker room.
“It’s a shocking experience as a freshman to see your fellow freshman teammates get ran, but then you see everybody bystanding in the locker room,” the player said. “It’s just a really abrasive and barbaric culture that has permeated throughout that program for years on end now.”
The Daily obtained images of whiteboards labeled “Runsgiving” and “Shrek’s List,” containing a list of names indicating players that the player said needed to be “ran.”
The former player also claimed that Fitzgerald was aware of the ongoing hazing and even encouraged it.
Other hazing activities alleged by the former player included stripping naked and performing acts like bear crawling and a quarterback-center exchange. There was also something called "the carwash."
In a once-a-year tradition dubbed “the carwash,” the first player said that some players would stand naked at the entrance to the showers and spin around, forcing those entering the showers to “basically (rub) up against a bare-naked man.” Upon entering the showers, the player alleged that players set up a hose they connected to the shower to spray people.
“It’s extremely painful,” the player said.
Though various players interviewed in the school investigation had varied perspectives on the alleged hazing, the whistleblower's claims were "largely supported by evidence" and knowledge of the alleged activities was "widespread," the investigative summary said.
"Current and former players varied on their perspective of the conduct; however, the investigation team determined that the complainant’s claims were largely supported by the evidence gathered during the investigation, including separate and consistent first-person accounts from current and former players," the summary said. "While the investigation did not uncover evidence pointing to specific misconduct by any individual football player or coach, participation in or knowledge of the hazing activities was widespread across football players."
In his Monday statement, Schill said 11 current or former football players acknowledged the hazing in the football program and that the hazing was "well-known by many in the program."
"While some student-athletes believed the hazing was in jest and not harmful, others viewed it as causing significant harm with long-term consequences," Schill said.
On Monday, three other former Northwestern players came forward with detailed allegations of racism within Fitzgerald’s program, dating back to the late 2000s. Hours after that story was published, news of Fitzgerald's dismissal emerged.
