One Can Only Hope

  I naively thought Big Ten universities ran a tight ship at its respective member schools. They were not to be confused with some SEC or Big 12 schools which routinely seem to be under an NCAA cloud. 

Look at the University of Tennessee. Over 200 violations and more than $8 million dollars in fines levied against the Volunteers. Shameful.

Or perhaps the the University of Georgia where the school is still feeling the reverberations of the fatal car accident right after the National Championship win in football. Tragic. 

Rutgers has had its incidents. Former basketball coach Mike Rice lost his job for the bullying and intimidation of players. The years with Kyle Flood as head football coach led to self-reportable violations. 

Look no further than Penn State and the notorious situation with the legendary Joe Paterno and the sexual abuse within his football program. His denials of knowledge and his inaction cost him his job and jail time for administrators. 

Taint within athletic programs is too common. The  price for winning as opposed to losing is great. The emphasis on maintaining a culture which promotes success is difficult—even at the winningest schools. Or for that matter, at the more academic schools.

Which brings me to the fiasco at Northwestern University. Along with the University of Michigan, Northwestern is considered to be at the top of the conference academically. 

Yet the football and baseball programs are now reeling after disclosures from student-athletes that hazing and racial bias was evidently permitted without caring about the consequences. This has led to the dismissal of both head coaches.

At first, Northwestern University President Micheal Schill suspended former Wildcats star linebacker and head coach Pat Fitzgerald for two weeks after an investigation by an independent law firm disclosed an abusive situation. That came with Fitzgerald’s denial of any knowledge of what was going on inside of the locker room or at pre-season camp. 

Only because investigative reporting from the student-run newspaper, The Daily Northwestern disclosed a far more serious pattern of physical hazing and abuse did President Schill reverse his course and fire the very popular Fitzgerald, and on the heels of additional allegations in the baseball program, that coach was axed. 

I firmly believe that any head football coach is a CEO of his program. He may delegate many tasks to effectuate smooth operation of that program, but he is solely responsible for what happens within the confines of his leadership. 

Denial of knowing what goes on inside of the locker room is unbelievable. These coaches micromanage every aspect of practice and the day for their players and coaches. 

Football is a rough sport. The culture within the locker room is one which supports violence and at the same time seeks team unity. 

Traditions rooted in high school and college about how the players interact is more commonplace than one would want to hear. Hazing at the high school level is many times ignored. 

Thus it is no surprise that such outlandish behavior is integrated into the fabric of a college football team. For years it was not acceptable to do anything else but allow the unwarranted punishment to promote a unified locker room. Complainers were ostracized. 

When Pat Fitzgerald acted like he had not idea what was going on within his team, I found that to be incredible. I really doubt very much that someone like Nick Saban, perhaps the G.O.A.T. of college football coaches, didn’t have the pulse of his Alabama football teams, including the machinations inside and outside of the locker room. 

Fitzgerald was Northwestern’s head man for 18 seasons. He actually brought the Wildcats to levels of respectability within the Big Ten, although the 2022 season was a disaster, with the team winning only one game. 

No one was looking to fire Fitzgerald. He was so beloved that he only received that initial two week suspension. Concurrently, recommendations were to be implemented that would clear up the problems.

Instead, the confusion about what really transpired has led to chaos in the athletic department and a big shiner for the school. A school revered for its academics and beloved by its alumni for its membership in the Big Ten looked as two bit as any less prestigious football program. 

It is going to take years for the Northwestern football and baseball programs to emerge from this cloud of disrepute. With the money invested already into the program to make it competitive with the likes of the big boys in the Big Ten and the future renovations of the ancient Ryan Field to the tune of $800 million, this is a disastrous turn of the university which is fully engaged in big time athletics. 

Recruits are going to shy away from Northwestern until it is shown that the program is going to rebound. A new head coach needs to be selected and a host of safeguards be integrated into the life of the football and baseball programs as well as across the entirety of Northwestern athletics. 

Fitzgerald will possibly sue the school for his abrupt firing. This will likely result in a settlement. He will probably resurface as a coach in the NFL—his name had repeatedly been linked to the Chicago Bears as their head coach. He will walk away okay from this tragedy even with a stain on his reputation.

What Fitzgerald will have to think about are the lives of those players he was entrusted to lead and how traumatic their lives will be for years to come. That is the greatest toll in this catastrophe. Fitzgerald and the athletic administration failed them.

Will this stop other schools from having bad cultures evolve within their programs? Perhaps temporarily. Could it lead to more schools becoming more vigilant about how the players lead by exam? Maybe.

The cheating and malfeasance at the Division I-A level will continue as long as there remains the pressure to win coupled with the absurd costs offset by the equally ridiculous amount of TV income generated. Given the fact that the football schools would really like to police themselves, will there ever be an end to coaches committing infractions or turning their heads to keep the best available players enrolled and on the field? 

It hasn’t been stopped before and it won’t be stopped now, even with the hideous behavior at Northwestern. But if that vaunted institution can get its act together and insure that instances like this never occur again, then maybe there will be a learning experience which will results in victories being produced in the right manner for the correct reasons.

One can only hope.