Fitz & NU Settle...
- Thread starter Sheffielder
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My sources indicate he’ll likely be the defensive coordinator of Joliet Academy or the Assistant LB coach for Iowa.
"I am extremely disappointed that members of the team engaged in this behavior and that no one reported it to me," he said, "so that I could have alerted Northwestern's Athletic Department and administrators, stopped the inappropriate behavior, and taken every necessary step to protect Northwestern's student athletes."
In a statement released Thursday, Northwestern said Fitzgerald did not condone or direct any of the alleged hazing.
www.espn.com
In a statement released Thursday, Northwestern said Fitzgerald did not condone or direct any of the alleged hazing.
Northwestern, former football coach Pat Fitzgerald settle lawsuit
Northwestern and former football coach Pat Fitzgerald have settled a $130 million lawsuit, which was filed by Fitzgerald after his dismissal two years ago amid allegations of hazing in the program.
www.espn.com
"I am extremely disappointed that members of the team engaged in this behavior and that no one reported it to me," he said, "so that I could have alerted Northwestern's Athletic Department and administrators, stopped the inappropriate behavior, and taken every necessary step to protect Northwestern's student athletes."
In a statement released Thursday, Northwestern said Fitzgerald did not condone or direct any of the alleged hazing.
Northwestern, former football coach Pat Fitzgerald settle lawsuit
Northwestern and former football coach Pat Fitzgerald have settled a $130 million lawsuit, which was filed by Fitzgerald after his dismissal two years ago amid allegations of hazing in the program.
Winston & Strawn is a big firm, so maybe there were some on his team. But Dan Webb, who was front and center, graduated from Loyola's law school.
Yeah, based on NU’s statement, if it’s not $130mm it’s awfully close.
Based on the statements from both Fitz and NU, it sounds like NU folded on just about everything. The only thing more that Fitz could have asked for would be firing Schill. It's funny that Schill himself is reportedly not allowed to make a statement, although I doubt the weasel would say anything in any case.
Now that the Fitz situation is out of the way, the university and law enforcement can go after the perpetrators of these awful deeds, right guy?
Yep. OJ searched for the rest of his life for Nicole's killer
More like Paterno's attorney saying they were "very, very satisfied".
Likely Pat Ryan wrote a check so we can scrape Paterno off our shoe
I try not to feed the trolls but you are completely out of your mind.
It’s so odd to me how many people want to blame the guy despite the settlement allowing them to say that fits had no information that any of this was occurring, and the public doens’t have any evidence of this actually occurring in the way it was alleged, yet many people seem hellbent on somehow blaming fitz.
It’s lazy analysis to fall back on ”it’s his program and happened on his watch.” Corrective action can only be corrective if it actually adreesses the problem. Fitz can only be at fault if he somehow created the conditions for this to happen (if it did at all-we don’t actually know), but everything at every point from every source in establishing Fritz didn’t know, Fritz wasn;t told, Fitz wouldn’t have condoned it.
Firing Fitz therefore creates a scapegoat and distracts from the actual problem, which ironically is not only not a productIve means of fixing the problem, but provides the first concrete evidence of someone being victimized by this in Pat Fitzgerald, himself.
It’s lazy analysis to fall back on ”it’s his program and happened on his watch.” Corrective action can only be corrective if it actually adreesses the problem. Fitz can only be at fault if he somehow created the conditions for this to happen (if it did at all-we don’t actually know), but everything at every point from every source in establishing Fritz didn’t know, Fritz wasn;t told, Fitz wouldn’t have condoned it.
Firing Fitz therefore creates a scapegoat and distracts from the actual problem, which ironically is not only not a productIve means of fixing the problem, but provides the first concrete evidence of someone being victimized by this in Pat Fitzgerald, himself.
Fitz was all about "no hazing tolerated at NU" and this **** happened for a long time under his very well compensated watch. He failed and I'm glad he's gone.
So we should not stop with Fitz and go after the people who did this ****, right?
Just shows there are still people out there that have no clue about the differences in the two cases.
This statement is objectively nonsensical.
To tolerate something you have to be aware of it. To not be tolerant of something you need to be aware of it. Not being aware of it is ignorance.
like if your neighbor is at home listening to music wearing headphones, you’re not “tolerating” that, you’re ignorant to its occurrence.
Words have meaning and the ones you chose invalidated the point you sought to make.
Iowa seems plausible. One of his sons is there. He and Ferrentz seem to get along. Some online Hawkeyes are even talking about him in the Succession pool. It would be ironic, though. When Hayden Fry talked trash about not wanting to "hurt your boys", it was after the 1994 game. Fitz would have been one of those boys. He needs to spin in his grave.
Such a poor, misinformed take. Are you really that detached from the reality of the situation?
Too bad we won’t get to hear the Richardson audio tape. Perhaps it will get “leaked” now that the litigation is over.
I mean, can we still argue it didn’t actually really happen to begin with after the Hickey Report said it did, and Fitz’s settlement statement said he learned through discovery that it did?
The best pro-Fitz argument is that he didn’t create the conditions/didn’t know/wouldn’t have condoned it, etc. — basically that whatever conduct there was “widespread knowledge” of in the Hickey Report about which there were “varied … perspectives” was something widely perceived as benign and that he had no reason to believe had escalated into something else without someone reporting it to him, right?
But the charitable position is how was he to know, not there was nothing to know…
The matter was totally mishandled from the beginning. Two week suspension converted into a firing and the investigation takes place after he is fired. Exposed NU to big $ exposure. Never should have gotten there. Both Fitz and NU suffered the consequences. Glad it is settled.
I hadn’t read the entirety of his press release when I wrote this, I think I just saw Lou’s tweet. But after seeing it, I certainly would agree with you wholeheartedly.
$130 million was the price Fitz's attorneys sued NU for, and seems really unlikely the settlement was for anything close to that.
The real win for Fitz is being able to publicly claim without contradiction that he didn't know anything about the hazing and wasn't involved in it for the many many years it happened directly under his nose.
Now he gets to be a marketable coach again and can get back in the game while he's still relatively young.
The win for NU is moving on from the immediate fallout of their total mismanagement of dealing with him, his staff, and the hazing allegations.
The real win for Fitz is being able to publicly claim without contradiction that he didn't know anything about the hazing and wasn't involved in it for the many many years it happened directly under his nose.
Now he gets to be a marketable coach again and can get back in the game while he's still relatively young.
The win for NU is moving on from the immediate fallout of their total mismanagement of dealing with him, his staff, and the hazing allegations.
This is the point. You can’t have it both ways. Like, if you actually believe systemic hazing occurred to the degree that it was reported (which turned out to be false), then morally, you must demand accountability from the players, other coaches, staff, and administration. Like, it baffles me that you would still root for this team in any way. The ethical logic doesn’t add up—unless, you are being disingenuous and simply want a scapegoat to move on from.
In any case, Fitz won—and I’m hopeful he can be celebrated publicly now by NU.
No surprise that I agree completely. One thing that is an unfortunate result of the settlement is that we will never know the full extent of the hazing. Did it start 5, 10, 15 years ago? How extensive was the hazing? Were players going through the crash regularly or was it a rare occurrence?
I know the report said hazing did occur, but no details on the length and pervasiveness of it.
If either Fitz or Northwestern thought those details would reflect favorably upon them, they could have insisted upon trial to ensure they saw the light of day...
For my $0.02, I find it fair (indeed, probable) to infer therefrom (and, as I said before, the conclusions of the Hickey Report and Fitz's own statement post-settlement) that systemic hazing did indeed occur to the degree that it was reported, which is why I'm all for there being accountability for others beyond Fitz, particularly inclusive of Schill who mismanaged the review of the investigation and did not appear to take it seriously from the start.
As to the "you would still root for this team[?]" question -- well, yeah, it's still my school. Plus the vast majority of the people who were involved are long gone at this point. McGarigle is the only current coach that was even on staff during the relevant time period, as far as I'm aware, and if there were any team members that are still on the roster by this point, they were likely freshmen and the targets of abuse rather than ringleaders multiple years ago.