Northwestern fires football coach Fitzgerald

Northwestern has fired coach Pat Fitzgerald amid allegations of widespread hazing within the football program, university president Michael Schill announced Monday.

“The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team,” Schill wrote in an open letter to the school community. “The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others.”

Defensive coordinator David Braun is expected to be named the Wildcats’ acting head coach, sources told ESPN.

The firing of Fitzgerald comes after the school announced Friday that he’d be suspended without pay for two weeks this summer following the conclusion of a university-commissioned investigation into allegations made by a former Northwestern football player. The school said the investigation, which began in January and was conducted by an outside law firm, did not find “sufficient” evidence that the coaching staff knew about ongoing hazing — though there were “significant opportunities” to find out about it.

The school then reversed course Saturday night after The Daily Northwestern published a story detailing allegations from the former player who described specific instances of hazing and sexual abuse. The report also indicated that Fitzgerald “may have known that hazing took place.”

That led Schill to write an open letter to the university community in which he said that he “may have erred in weighing the appropriate sanction” for Fitzgerald and acknowledged focusing “too much on what the report concluded (Fitzgerald) didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known.” Schill went on to say that he planned to speak with university leadership, members of the board of trustees and leaders of the faculty senate to determine his next steps.

In his letter Monday, Schill said the decision to fire Fitzgerald “comes after a difficult and complex evaluation of my original discipline decision imposed last week on Coach Fitzgerald for his failure to know and prevent significant hazing in the football program. Over the last 72 hours, I have spent a great deal of time in thought and in discussions with people who love our University — the Chair and members of our Board of Trustees, faculty leadership, students, alumni and Coach Fitzgerald himself. I have also received many phone calls, text messages and emails from those I know, and those I don’t, sharing their thoughts.

“While I am appreciative of the feedback and considered it in my decision-making, ultimately, the decision to originally suspend Coach Fitzgerald was mine and mine alone, as is the decision to part ways with him.”

Schill, who was the president of the University of Oregon before taking over Northwestern in September, said in his letter that the report from ArentFox Schiff will remain confidential. But he wrote that, during the investigation, 11 current or former players acknowledged the hazing within the program.

“The hazing included forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature, in clear violation of Northwestern policies and values,” Schill wrote.

In a statement to ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, the former player whose allegations prompted the investigation said, “For me, this has always been about the physical and mental safety of student-athletes. There is still progress to be made in athletics across the country; today is a move in that direction. I am appreciative of those that reviewed the facts that have been presented.”

According to a Northwestern team official, Fitzgerald briefly addressed the football team in a meeting Monday night. His wife and three sons, including his oldest, Jack, a current Northwestern player, attended the meeting. Athletic director Derrick Gragg, who had been overseas, addressed the team via Zoom, and coordinators Braun and Mike Bajakian spoke in person, sources told ESPN, describing the meeting as very somber and emotional.

Fitzgerald went 110-101 over 17 seasons and is by far the most successful football coach in school history, with more wins (110) than anyone else at the school. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

Fitzgerald spent over 26 total seasons with the program — four as a player, five as an assistant, and 17 as head coach. He also led the school to five of its six bowl wins in program history, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

Northwestern has five 10-win seasons in program history and Fitzgerald has been a part of four of them — three as a coach and one as a player.

Fitzgerald’s tenure unwound after a former player, who has since transferred, reported the program’s hazing activities to the school. The former player, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Daily Northwestern that sexualized hazing activities took place in the team’s locker room. One common practice, called “running,” involved a younger player being restrained while eight to 10 older players engaged in a sexualized act in the locker room.

According to the newspaper, the former player reported his claims to the school in late 2022, and he spoke to investigators during the six-month university-commissioned probe, which included more than 50 people currently or formerly affiliated with the program.

In an executive summary of the investigation released Friday, Northwestern said the hazing claims could be “largely supported” and that “there had been significant opportunities to discover and report” what had happened. But investigators could not determine enough evidence to show the coaches were aware of the hazing activities, a sentiment that was reiterated by Schill in his statement Monday.

“The hazing was well-known by many in the program, though the investigator failed to find any credible evidence that Coach Fitzgerald himself knew about it,” Schill wrote in his open letter. “As the entire six-month independent investigation was confidential, I only recently learned many of the details, including the complainant’s identity. I spoke with his parents on Friday and the student on Sunday.”

Fitzgerald, 48, is two years into a 10-year, $57 million contract, and there’s been no indication yet of the potential financial fallout from his firing.

If he’d coached this season, Fitzgerald was set to be the fifth-longest-tenured active coach in FBS football.

Braun, the team’s expected interim coach, came to Northwestern in January from North Dakota State, where he was FCS coordinator of the year in 2021. He’s entering his first season with the program.

The Wildcats open the season Sept. 3 at Rutgers.

Information from ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg and The Associated Press was included in this report.