Northwestern University fired football coach Pat Fitzgerald over hazing allegations, but later admitted he wasn’t responsible.
The university settled lawsuits with 34 former players and issued a public apology to Fitzgerald.
Although Northwestern acknowledged hazing occurred, an investigation found no evidence Fitzgerald knew about or condoned it.
There’s no reason to pull punches now, no sense in deferring to the politically correct thing.
What Northwestern did two years ago to former coach Pat Fitzgerald was character and career assassination. Full stop.
Forget about Thursday’s cash settlement or an official statement of apology, which admitted Northwestern wrongfully fired Fitzgerald prior to the 2023 season because he should’ve known about hazing within the football program.
It will never be enough.
Because here’s the worst part of this gross, reckless negligence from Northwestern: the university’s actions don’t disappear by throwing cash at the problem, and with a public relations-fed, attorney-orchestrated admittance of guilt.
Fitzgerald will forever be stained by association. Truth and innocence be damned.
Once you’re painted with the wide and indelible brush of public opinion – once everyone jumps on the pile to get their pound of flesh – it never fades.
“Evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald,” Northwestern’s statement read. “Or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing.”
That’s about two years and one coaching job too short.
How much is a man’s reputation worth? How many millions will it take for Fitzgerald, his wife, Stacy, and their three sons to be at peace with the public humiliation brought about by Northwestern’s actions?
I want to be very clear: There’s no room for hazing, anywhere. Not in sports, not in society. It preys on the weak, dehumanizes the innocent and changes lives forever.
Northwestern acknowledged hazing within the football program, and announced it had settled lawsuits with 34 former players. But it took Northwestern more than two years to finally admit another gross injustice: blaming Fitzgerald for the hazing, and firing him for cause with nearly $70 million remaining on his contract.
But this story isn’t about money, it’s about university officials bending to social media pitchforks and taking punitive action in a ruthlessly reactionary time where the squeakiest wheel held more power than the truth.
And taking two years to admit they blew it.
When he announced Fitzgerald’s firing in July of 2023, Northwestern president Michael Schill said 11 current or former Northwestern players, “acknowledged that hazing has been ongoing within the football program” — and that “new media confirmed that hazing was systemic dating back many years.”
Whatever ‘new media’ means.
So Schill took anecdotal evidence of hazing and player mistreatment from current and former players – through a six-month investigation that began in November of 2022, and then from ‘new media’ – and used it as evidence to fire Fitzgerald.
What he learned from the six-month, third-party investigation initially led to a two-week suspension. What he read from “new media” then led to Fitzgerald’s firing.
It’s at this point where I remind everyone that just because you’re a university president, it doesn’t mean you’re the brightest bulb in the shop. Most university presidents are fundraisers above all else.
Some lead their universities to unthinkable wealth. Others to public shame, complete with a public apology and settlements for all involved.
It doesn’t matter how much money was just deposited into Fitzgerald’s bank account. Or that Northwestern finally admitted wrongdoing.
Northwestern fired the one good thing it had going for it athletically, the one guy who had become the face of a world-renowned university.
Fitzgerald played at Northwestern, was an assistant coach at Northwestern, and eventually became the most successful coach in school history.
Not just by wins, but by the lives he impacted.
Northwestern wasn’t a football power under Fitzgerald, but its teams performed well enough, and played with such passion, that college football blue bloods Michigan, Notre Dame and Southern California (and a few NFL teams) tried to lure Fitzgerald from Evanston.
He told them all to take a hike.
He loved living in Chicago, loved molding young men – yeah, it sounds corny and contrived in the current age of me-first players – and ritually declared they would graduate with a degree from “one of the finest institutions in the world.”
The world.
The world just got a little smaller. And no amount of money or exculpatory statements of fact can change a thing.
Truth and innocence be damned.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.