Former Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald, who was fired Monday in the wake of a hazing scandal, is exploring potential breach-of-contract claims against the school, his attorney confirmed Tuesday.
“Northwestern University made some unusual, bizarre decisions in the past week that seriously have damaged Pat Fitzgerald’s reputation,” attorney Dan Webb told the Tribune.
The university initially handed Fitzgerald a two-week unpaid suspension after an outside investigation that confirmed hazing among teammates but did not implicate Fitzgerald. Then on Monday, Fitzgerald was ousted altogether.
The firing was a violation of Fitzgerald’s employment contract, Webb said. The initial suspension was the result of an agreement between the school and Fitzgerald — which was also breached when the school fired him, Webb said.
“If he would accept a two-week suspension without pay and issue a brief statement, they promised him that would be the only punishment they would render,” Webb said. “They had an agreement, an oral agreement. You just can’t wake up the next morning and say ‘we’re going to change it.’ That’s why (we) have contract law.”
A spokesman for Northwestern declined to comment Tuesday.
The full investigation, conducted by former Illinois Inspector General Maggie Hickey, has not been made public, though the school released a summary. Webb said neither he nor Fitzgerald have seen the full report.
In a statement Monday, university President Michael Schill said the investigation found 11 current or former players who corroborated the hazing allegations. And while he said the investigator found no “credible evidence” that Fitzgerald knew about the hazing, it was “well-known by many in the program.”
“The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team,” Schill said. “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.”
Schill’s statement said he reached the decision to fire Fitzgerald “after a difficult and complex evaluation” of his initial punishment for the coach’s “failure to know and prevent significant hazing in the football program.”
Webb noted that Northwestern had the full report when it made the initial decision to suspend Fitzgerald, and to his knowledge nothing new came to light in the short span of time between the suspension and the termination.
“They’ve breached two contracts and damaged his reputation severely in the way this has occurred,” Webb said. “I’m completely baffled as to how Northwestern University could have engaged in this course of conduct.”
Webb, a former U.S. attorney, brings significant profile to the matter. His cases make headlines: He recently defended Fox News in a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. He was appointed special prosecutor in both the Jussie Smollett matter and, years beforehand, the probe of the death of David Koschman during a drunken altercation with a nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley.
As a U.S. attorney, he led the legendary investigation of Cook County judicial corruption in the 1980s known as Operation Greylord. He acted as an independent counsel in an Iran-Contra trial in 1990.
The hiring of such a significant figure led to speculation in legal circles that Fitzgerald could be trying to hedge against lawsuits or even criminal liability. But Webb on Tuesday said he had no knowledge of any potential lawsuits or criminal investigations against Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was the winningest football coach in school history, with a 110-101 record in 17 seasons. A former star linebacker on the Wildcats’ 1995 team that played in the Rose Bowl, Fitzgerald became the youngest head coach in the nation when he took over for Randy Walker in 2006 at age 31 after Walker died of a heart attack.
The hazing scandal, which Schill acknowledged involved “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature,” has sent shock waves through the Northwestern community. The Daily Northwestern, a student paper, over the weekend published a former player’s allegations of “egregious and vile” locker-room behavior. Former players told the Tribune their experiences with hazing left them with lasting trauma.
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
