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As a Northwestern University freshman in 1975, I was one of the faithful who regularly attended football games at home, despite the team’s losing records. “Northwestern is not a football factory,” my father would say.
After graduation, I lost track of the team until the buzz of the 1994 season recaptured my interest. After coach Gary Barnett “brought the Purple to Pasadena,” I was hooked.
Following the “Cardiac Cats” through 2022 season has brought both euphoria and heartache; overall, it’s been wildly entertaining. And it’s felt uplifting to support athletes who were not only teammates and friends but also “brothers.” A team where the older guys were role models and mentors for the younger guys and where the head coach spoke glowingly of the growth and development of his young men, the hopes and expectations he had for them beyond football, and his pride in how well they handled themselves as representatives not only of the team but also of the university.
Over the years, I sweated through rumors that “Coach Fitz” might decide to leave Northwestern for a better job. Who would have guessed I would one day welcome the news he’d been fired?
I’m appalled by the pain and suffering that has occurred behind the scenes while I have lost myself in the drama of the game. It feels personal; it happened in my “house.”
Regardless of what’s decided about moving forward, there’ll be no college football season for me this fall. If there were a cave I could escape to for the duration, I’d find it. You can’t change a culture overnight. There’s no joy for me in what remains at the moment — only a recognition of brokenness. (Even the familiar ring of, “Go ‘Cats!” now sounds like blasphemy.)
My hope is that good will come out of this debacle. It’s likely we’ll be hearing more stories of hazing, throughout the NCAA sports world in the coming days. May this be a watershed moment in which the truth prevails: Torture, humiliation and subjugation are wrong, always, and are certainly not justifiable for the sake of bonding and a winning culture.
Many thanks to the courageous team members and journalists who spoke up. You did the right thing.
— Colleen McDonald, Rockford
Take away players’ scholarships
So now that Pat Fitzgerald has been fired for his lack of institutional control over the Northwestern University football program, a decision that was 100% justified, the athletic department and the administration need to go one step further by terminating the scholarships of the real culprits.
Back in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, hazing was referred to as initiation or a way of making a man out of you. For those of us who competed in sports during those years, it was a right of passage. But times have changed, as Fitzgerald stated in a past interview, so players and coaches should and must know better. Lasting physical, emotional and psychological effects are far greater today due to the social media craze and the need to bully and embarrass.
In today’s sports, the only way to reprimand a coach or executive is through their bank statements. The same should hold true for scholarship athletes receiving roughly $300,000 in tuition, room and board.
The coaches and the players should be taught the only lesson they will understand. Good riddance!
— Mark Zavagnin, La Grange Park
Where were the ‘good guys’?
Something, I suspect a lot of things, really stinks on the campus up on Sheridan Road in Evanston.
Northwestern University President Michael Schill indicts and fires head coach Pat Fitzgerald over not knowing what he “should have” known as the head of the football program. But doesn’t that same level of responsibility extend to the university president who “should know” what’s going on campuswide? After all, isn’t he the ultimate head of all the programs?
Sports writer and Northwestern football veteran Rick Telander this week cited the women’s soccer team being suspended for hazing back in 2006. Why isn’t this same serious punishment being discussed for the men’s football team? Where are all the moral leaders of all these student athletes now?
And finally, where were the “good guys” during all these locker room abuses? Where were the captains of the team? The senior and junior leaders of the squad? The assistant coaches? Why did not just one man step forward and say, “Stop this! This is wrong! This is disgusting!”?
It is said a fish rots from the head, and I think the entire university administration is getting a good strong whiff of how big its problems really are.
— Dennis Allen, Wilmette
Responsibility from the top
I’ve been reading with much interest the Tribune’s coverage of Northwestern University’s football, for a better word, debacle. I, like so many others, was outraged when university President Michael Schill decided to place the football coach on a two-week suspension without pay because of the hazing allegations. Really? He should have been fired outright.
It is not as if this was the first time hazing and/or sexual harassment has been an issue for the university. It was and is clear that the head of any sports program is responsible for what happens with his team — in and out of the locker room. Having just read the column by Tribune sports writer Paul Sullivan about what is going on at Northwestern and in its football program (“Coach couldn’t outlast allegations,” July 11), I was so relieved to read Sullivan’s comment that “now Fitzgerald is gone, maybe it is time to look into whether Schill is the right guy to lead the university forward. ... Does anyone trust him to make the right call on a replacement?”
I for one am wondering about that. Responsibility flows from the top down.
— Judy Share, Chicago
Fitzgerald is not fit to lead
It seems that now-former Northwestern head football coach Pat Fitzgerald is the new Sgt. Schultz from “Hogan’s Heroes,” a man who knows nothing and sees nothing, at least when it comes to the hazing allegedly taking place in the program of which he was in charge.
If it’s true that Fitzgerald was completely ignorant of the hazing, then he should not be a coach of any sport at any level because he unwittingly built a program that enables bullying to not only exist but also flourish. If he knew what was going on, then he simply turned a blind eye to what is a cruel, humiliating and sometimes dangerous Neanderthal ritual.
Either way, Fitzgerald is not fit to lead. Honestly, what administrator would want to entrust the welfare of athletes of any age to Fitzgerald?
Chicago Tribune Opinion
— Peter Lucas, Highland Park
What about criminal charges?
I do not take issue with Northwestern University’s dismissal of head coach Pat Fitzgerald. However, he is not the only party who should face consequences for the hazing allegations.
Why have there been no criminal charges for those who allegedly hazed new members of the Northwestern football team? They should at least be charged with criminal assault. Given the descriptions of their actions, additional charges for sexual assault and battery may be justified as well.
Hazing will not end unless participants pay the price for their criminal behavior.
— Laura J. Graf, St. Charles
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