Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Northwestern football coach Monday, according to reports, after a hazing scandal tarnished the program he helped build.
Fitzgerald originally received a two-week, unpaid suspension from the university Friday after an outside investigation confirmed a former player’s account of hazing by teammates. The report said the coaching staff had “significant opportunities to discover and report the hazing conduct,” which it did not detail.
After the student paper, The Daily Northwestern, on Saturday published the former player’s account of sexualized hazing activities, university President Michael Schill said in a letter to the Northwestern community he erred in judgment and would revisit the sanctions against Fitzgerald.
Two days later, Fitzgerald was out.
He ends his Northwestern career as 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.
Walker had hired Fitzgerald as a secondary coach in 2001, and Fitzgerald was moved to linebackers coach the next year.
Chicago Tribune Sports
Weekdays
A daily sports newsletter delivered to your inbox for your morning commute.
“This would have been Randy’s choice,” Walker’s widow, Tammy, said at the time. “(Fitzgerald) becoming the head coach will keep all of the positive things at NU going in the same direction.”
When former athletic director Mark Murphy came to Fitzgerald’s house to offer him the job, Fitzgerald called it “the most bittersweet moment I’ve ever had. It was a dream of mine to be head coach here, but not under these circumstances.”
Before his first season he told the Tribune: “I’ve learned that life is extremely fragile and you need to live life every day like it may be your last, and to really, truly love the people who are close to you and that they know that you love them. And communicate to the people around you how important they are in your life because you never know when that’s not going to be there.”
Over the years, Fitzgerald frequently was the subject of job rumors, with NFL teams and other power conference schools reportedly interested in hiring him away.
But he stayed at his alma mater, and after the Wildcats made the Big Ten title game for the second time in three years during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he was rewarded with a 10-year contract through 2030 worth a reported $57 million.
The Wildcats suffered through a 3-9 season in 2021 and hit rock bottom the next year, going 1-11 with their only victory coming in the opener against Nebraska in Ireland. Still, there was no talk of Fitzgerald’s job being in jeopardy until the external report on the hazing scandal was released Friday.
The university and Fitzgerald declined to comment as details of the reported hazing became public, adding to the scrutiny over his future. By Monday, it was no longer tenable for Fitzgerald to continue and the decision to fire him was made.
