Tony Petitti addresses Northwestern scandal, Big Ten's stance on hazing
On Wednesday, new Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti answered questions at his first conference media day. The biggest topic of conversation remained the hazing scandal that hit Northwestern.
Despite the allegations, Petitti explained that the Big Ten won’t be launching its own investigation into the Northwestern football program because these are institution led.
“Yeah, with the process right now Northwestern’s launched two investigations,” Tony Petitti said. “The process in the conference on these matters is led by the institution. There’s no investigation being launched by the conference. We’ll wait to see the results of those investigations and will have further comments at that time. Thank you.”
Northwestern football players released a statement the day before Big Ten Media Days, announcing that they weren’t going to be in attendance. Their statement partially read, “But given the recent events involving the Northwestern football program, we did not want our participation to be dominated by the hazing issue and steal the focus away from football and the upcoming season.”
Tony Petitti also admitted that he believes the Northwestern scandal is going to lead to schools re-evaluating their programs to make sure that they don’t have similar issues.
“Yeah, I think when something like this happens, I think our member institutions are going to take it upon themselves to do that, right? The obvious result would be to look at practices to make sure that’s what happening on campus meets the standards we expect, to provide a safe and healthy environment for student-athletes. I think that’s where that work needs to take place,” Petitti said. “I know in talking to some of our directors and coaches, that they understand that.”
There are currently several lawsuits against Northwestern related to its athletics department.
David Braun deflects question about Northwestern retaining assistants allegedly involved in hazing
Interim Northwestern head coach David Braun was at Big Ten Media Days where he faced several questions about the hazing scandal. Those questions included why the program has retained coaches allegedly involved in hazing.
“I won’t speak to current allegations,” Braun said. “Fully trust that our university is going through a process and will make decisions based on the facts. What I can speak to is how proud I am of the way that our team has come together with all this stuff swirling around our football team. And there’s absolute resolve and confidence from our leadership within our team of how we’re going to move forward.”