2023-07-11 17:58:04
Northwestern loses its coach: Pat Fitzgerald fired after new scandal
July 11, 2023
Pat Fitzgerald fired from Northwestern. Photo: Getty Images.
the university of Northwestern announced yesterday the firing of its head coach, Pat Fitzgerald. After 22 seasons on the coaching staff of the Big Ten entity and 17 as head coachto which he adds another four as a player during which he was chosen twice as the best defensive player of the year.
Throughout his time as head coachFitzgerald twice won the Western division of the conference (2018 and 2020), accumulated a record of 110 wins against 101 losses (long most successful coach in program history) and a 5-5 mark in games of Bowl. He was the 2018 Big Ten Coach of the Year and two of his players were selected All-Americans.
However, his sporting achievements do not matter in the least when analyzing what happened in this situation since Pat Fitzgerald was fired from his position for his negligence in preventing many of his players were harassed (sometimes sexually) by some of his peers over a period that reportedly spanned many years.
Pat Fitzgerald fired from Northwestern after new scandal
In November last year, an anonymous former Northwestern player made a complaint to the university that there were harassing practices in the team, mostly one called “running” to punish players, mainly freshmen, who made mistakes, either in games or in practice. Immediately after receiving the complaint, the university hired an outside firm, ArentFox Schiff, to conduct the investigation. It found, after six months of investigation during which they interviewed current and former players on the team, that what was denounced was supported by evidence. For more details about it, you can listen to the College Diary episode quoted above.
As reported by The Daily Northwestern, if a player was selected for runningbetween 8 and 10 most senior players on the team, dressed in outfits similar to those in the movie The Purge, would keep him in the darkened locker room and start doing “dry-humping” which, translated simply and simply, is equivalent to fornicating the punished person with clothes. The complainant said that the rest of the team just watched it happen and that this was years ago.
This, however, was not the only practice of recurring harassment. Three of them included nudity, such as forcing a naked QB to receive a snap under center, of a center also naked, or a “human car wash” in which a naked player had to walk in the middle of two rows of naked players that rotated on their own axis to force the contact of the naked bodies. Detainees were also forced to drink as much Gatorade as they could within ten minutes, which always resulted in vomiting. If the punished wanted to refuse to submit, he was forced to do so..
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Northwestern announced Friday that Pat Fitzgerald would be suspended for two weeks without pay, but a day later, the university’s president, Michael H. Schill, released a statement saying he believed he had “erred” in his decision. The truth is the investigation found no evidence of Fitzgerald’s knowledge of all of these harassing practices. However, Schill said in his statement that she focused “too much on what Fitzgerald didn’t know and too little on what there should be acquaintance”.
Finally, the university made official yesterday the dismissal of Fitzgeraldto which the coach responded with a statement in which he stated “shocked that Northwestern’s president unilaterally revoked our agreement (two-week suspension) without notice” and said that “will take the necessary steps to protect my rights in accordance with the law“. From the university they responded in another statement and affirmed that eleven players acknowledged the existence of recurring harassment practices and that they occurred “many years” ago.
In his statement, Fitzgerald purports to defend himself by saying that “the investigation reaffirmed what I have always maintained – that I was not aware of any type of harassment within the Northwestern Football Program“. What the coach conveniently chooses to ignore is that, after 17 years as head coach of that team, absolutely everything that happens within the program is your responsibility. From the players he recruits to what he allows and doesn’t allow to happen within his program, everything that happens with the Northwestern football team falls under his orbit.
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In any case, if indeed Fitzgerald was unaware that such activities were perpetrated on a recurring basis by his players, that makes him absolutely incapable of continuing to control the program. The head coaches of the college football son CEO’s who wear headphones on Saturdays. It is your responsibility to hire your coaching staff, recruit the players and decide on the present and future of each and every one of the members of your program. Being the visible face of a football team is only a small part of his job and they are directly responsible for everything that happens with it. Therefore, if his roster of players has included harassers for years, whether he is aware of it or not, it is the result of his decisions. In this sense, the decision for Northwestern was inevitable.
FCS Coordinator of the Year in 2021, David Brownoriginally hired from North Dakota State to fill the position of defensive coordinator, will be the new head coach of the Wildcats. After a 2022 in which they finished with a 1-11 record and the second worst differential in points per game (-14.6) in the Power-5, a complicated 2023 awaits them after the turbulent departure of one of the greatest legends in the history of his program.
Luciano Chatelain
Supporter of the Seattle Seahawks and UNC Tar Heels. I was made a sports fan by my uncle from Seattle. Editor and podcaster at “El Cuarto Cuarto”. Obsessed with growing the most beautiful league in the world in LATAM.
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