Northwestern to reconsider penalty, suspension for Pat Fitzgerald amid new information regarding hazing allegations
The Pat Fitzgerald situation at Northwestern has taken an interesting new turn in light of some fresh information.
Earlier this week, it was announced the Wildcats were suspending their longtime football coach for two weeks without pay due to hazing incidents. The length of the suspension was determined after an investigation for allegations proven credible, but the program believed the coaching staff knew nothing what going on.
However, Northwestern is now reversing course as they continue to dig deeper, as Pete Thamel of ESPN is reporting the Wildcats will “reconsider” their penalties for Fitzgerald.
“Northwestern will reconsider penalties for coach Pat Fitzgerald after new details emerged Saturday surrounding allegations of hazing in the football program,” wrote Thamel on Sunday.
According to Thamel, Northwestern president Michael School and the Northwestern board of trustees will meet to determine a new penalty for their head football coach.
“University president Michael Schill, in a letter sent late Saturday to the Northwestern community, wrote that he ‘may have erred in weighing the appropriate sanction’ for Fitzgerald, who began serving a two-week, unpaid suspension Friday. Fitzgerald’s suspension was among the measures Northwestern announced after concluding the six-month investigation it commissioned into hazing allegations made by an anonymous whistleblower,” wrote Thamel. “Schill wrote that he spoke with the player’s family and apologized for what the player had to go through in the program. He also attempted to contact the former player, whose allegations were detailed in a report earlier Saturday from The Daily Northwestern.
“Schill will speak with Northwestern’s board of trustees and other university leaders to determine a new penalty for Fitzgerald, the team’s coach since 2006 and a two-time national defensive player of the year for the Wildcats.”
Moreover, in Schill’s aforementioned letter, he admitted that he should’ve used better judgement in determining Fitzgerald’s suspension.
“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 wrote, per Thamel. “As the head coach of one of our athletics programs, coach Fitzgerald is not only responsible for what happens within the program but also must take great care to uphold our institutional commitment to the student experience.
“… Clearly, he failed to uphold that commitment, and I failed to sufficiently consider that failure in levying a sanction.”
Time will tell what becomes on Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern in light of some new information, but it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on the situation moving forward.