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Northwestern- Fitzgerald Suspended, Now Fired Due to Hazing

I was listening to big ten radio on sirius this afternoon and they brought up some interesting things.

1) a few summers ago at the peak of the BLM thing Ferentz and Iowa were accused of bullying and racism and it was a media firestorm for a couple weeks that resulted in the strength coach taking the hit and getting canned

2) I forget the 3 guys hosting but they all said, “look weve all seen worse but times are different today. Back when we played (they played in 90’s and 2000’s for iowa and ohio state) the things we are hearing out of NW dont sound that bad but its not the 90’s any more and times are different. You cant do the same stuff these days.”

3) talked about how theyd pin a freshman down and “rough him up” not to hurt them but to let them know who the boss was. They kind of compared it to sounding similar to the accusation of 8-10 guys pinning down a freshman.

I said it earlier in the thread but for those who never played football you wont understand. Football culture had alot of hazing. Things that sound crazy were just the norm. Now times have changed but if youre a woman or someone who never played ball this all sounds nuts to you. But pretty much anyone who played pre-social media days dealt with some level of hazing. Some worse than others
The Iowa community is not the Northwestern community. NW is similar to RU. Think about how this would go over at Ru? It wouldn’t even matter if everything was PROVEN false. The politics and the buried hatred for GS by the faculty …it would be not stop defending it.
 
That would be incorrect. Anybody defending Paterno after he allowed Sandusky to continue his abuse at PSU would have ultimate dibs on the worst take in board history.

Wait............you're indicting the entire Penn State message board?
 
Because, in order to believe the allegations, we also have to believe that across years of different big, tough D1 football players, with all the alleged toxic stuff going on, not one player had the toughness to report it to the school or the coach or the media?

That's what gets me when we start hearing from people who were on the team 10-15-20 years ago: why, if this happened, are you speaking up now?
 
Yep. Here comes the pile on. Activist student organizations and activist professors LOVE going after sports teams, especially football. Going to be hard to sort through the truth, embellishments and lies. And that’s exactly what they will want. The press will pump our article after article because it gets them clicks.

I bet they studied the NJO tutorial about how to propagate lies!
 
I was listening to big ten radio on sirius this afternoon and they brought up some interesting things.

1) a few summers ago at the peak of the BLM thing Ferentz and Iowa were accused of bullying and racism and it was a media firestorm for a couple weeks that resulted in the strength coach taking the hit and getting canned

2) I forget the 3 guys hosting but they all said, “look weve all seen worse but times are different today. Back when we played (they played in 90’s and 2000’s for iowa and ohio state) the things we are hearing out of NW dont sound that bad but its not the 90’s any more and times are different. You cant do the same stuff these days.”

3) talked about how theyd pin a freshman down and “rough him up” not to hurt them but to let them know who the boss was. They kind of compared it to sounding similar to the accusation of 8-10 guys pinning down a freshman.

I said it earlier in the thread but for those who never played football you wont understand. Football culture had alot of hazing. Things that sound crazy were just the norm. Now times have changed but if youre a woman or someone who never played ball this all sounds nuts to you. But pretty much anyone who played pre-social media days dealt with some level of hazing. Some worse than others
I see some of your points, but there is a vast different between pinning someone down fully clothed as a power move and doing that naked or doing some of the other creepy naked antics and forcing skin to skin contact of one person's genitals against another person. That never did fly (or at least it should not have) and it today's world it is even worse.
 
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That's what gets me when we start hearing from people who were on the team 10-15-20 years ago: why, if this happened, are you speaking up now?
Why do rape victims not report the crime committed? Look at Nassar as one example, but there are many others. We also don't know all the facts and who reported what when and to whom. Don't blame the victims.
 
We are at the point where every kid who had a beef with the coach over playing time is starting to crawl out of the woodwork to bad mouth him. It is only going to get worse.
The new NIL…

He called me a Name
He called me an Idiot
He yelled at me too Loud

🤷‍♂️
 
That's what gets me when we start hearing from people who were on the team 10-15-20 years ago: why, if this happened, are you speaking up now?
Again, that can and does happen with stuff like rape or child abuse and it's understandable when people are afraid or ashamed to report it for a long time (they shouldn't be ashamed as it's not their fault, but it happens anyway).

But this isn't that. It's not contextually similar. I gotta think that, sooner or later, there would've been a brawl in the locker room with multiple players suffering broken bones and/or concussions. Maybe some players would accept it. But ALL of them? Very hard to believe.
 
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There’s certainly enough out there for anyone following the story to believe there was hazing; I don’t know the extent or severity. With that disclaimer:

It’s not hard to believe that a group of men in the situation you describe could / would silently abide such hazing. It becomes part of the culture, especially if veteran guys are participating in it (or even coaches…)

Guys who have an issue with it might keep their mouths shut, even if they don’t actively participate in it, for fear of rocking the boat, ostracizing themselves, damaging the careers / reputations of guys they otherwise respect as teammates.

Frats, sports teams, military, even corporate world…there are tons of cases where terrible hazing or inappropriate group behavior has gone on for longer than you’d otherwise expect.
Yes, I have no problem believing that some hazing was taking place. It's all the naked player-to-player contact that I am skeptical about.
 
Thought it was nothing until the details came out and then thought it could potentially blow up and it did.

Haven’t seen anything yet if he was fired for cause or not.
 
If rumors of him being gone are true, I wonder how many free seasons the incoming coach will get. Six? Eight?
 
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If rumors of him being gone are true, I wonder how many free seasons the incoming coach will get. Six? Eight?
I don’t think they’re rumors as many mainstream reporters have reported it.

Also don’t think a new HC will get much longer a leash than normal. In the age of the portal and what not, teams can be flipped fairly quickly, even if they don’t lose players. Like I mentioned above there will likely be an interim HC for this year and a search done after the season.

Coaches have turned things around at least enough to make a bowl on fairly quick timetables. 5 years at most to make a bowl, just like it pretty much always is.
 
Newest blood on the staff with the least ties to old guard. Could be an audition for him and who knows the previous NDSU coach Klieman has been doing okay at KSU.

 
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If this was all made up like some here think Pat is going to sue them into oblivion, which is why I’m inclined to believe there allegations were sadly true.
 
If this was all made up like some here think Pat is going to sue them into oblivion, which is why I’m inclined to believe there allegations were sadly true.
Well I don’t think he can sue if he was fired and paid his fully owed salary.

If they fired him for cause then yea he could sue.
 
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The way this is going, the president is going to have to release the full details of the investigation, with names redacted. He basically put out a tease that’s gonna light a huge fire under the media.

What a clusterfudge. If I were on the school’s BOG, I’d want to fire the president for his awful handling of the situation. A slap in the wrist for nude, sexualized, degrading hazing reported by multiple current and former players? And it was all verified by an investigation?

How did players not get arrested? Something is not right with all this.
 
The individual said that the whistleblower told him this directly. Just as the whistleblower is saying he saw/heard something directly. Same thing, no?
The hearsay of hearsay doesnt mean anything- but I thought the whistle blower you had referred to is the player bringing suit?
 
The way this is going, the president is going to have to release the full details of the investigation, with names redacted. He basically put out a tease that’s gonna light a huge fire under the media.

What a clusterfudge. If I were on the school’s BOG, I’d want to fire the president for his awful handling of the situation. A slap in the wrist for nude, sexualized, degrading hazing reported by multiple current and former players? And it was all verified by an investigation?

How did players not get arrested? Something is not right with all this.
Didn’t he come out and say the allegations were mostly unfounded?
 
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I see some of your points, but there is a vast different between pinning someone down fully clothed as a power move and doing that naked or doing some of the other creepy naked antics and forcing skin to skin contact of one person's genitals against another person. That never did fly (or at least it should not have) and it today's world it is even worse.
Not long ago- freshmen were "schooled" in true power moves- As such- Freshman talks shit to a 5th year Sr- Fr is DL and RSSR is OL- spring game in front of everyone- Sr allows thr frosh to make a statement to go man to man but not realizing he is baited into it- lay called and RSSR knows what Fr DL is planning- The rest of OL/DL knows what is happening and do not even play after snap just to watch frosh get punched to the neck and pinned to the turf like an alhpa dog would do to a B....knowing said B - is going to lose temper. Said Frosh runs laps entire 2nd half of spring game.
The other "locker room" hazing is more of get me this or that or take blame for something a Sr F-ed up on.

None of this was done naked or as sexual harassment.

Yes- aggressive young men that are taught to be alpha will always have ways they Haze- but it is far from normal- the shit they are talking.
 
If I were a donor, I’d consider cancelling the new stadium. I don‘t like when proven good guys are scapegoated for others’ misdeeds, such as Tim Pernetti.
 
Didn’t he come out and say the allegations were mostly unfounded?
I thought the tweeted statements included confirmation of the nudity, sexualized acts, and degradation. Maybe I misread. It’s hard to keep up and I’m rapidly losing interest.

It’s just such a strange situation. It’s like what AI would produce if asked to fabricate a scandal out of nothing.
 
I thought the tweeted statements included confirmation of the nudity, sexualized acts, and degradation. Maybe I misread. It’s hard to keep up and I’m rapidly losing interest.

It’s just such a strange situation. It’s like what AI would produce if asked to fabricate a scandal out of nothing.
Pretty sure he did and that was the reasoning behind the 3 week suspension. He succumbed to the PCU machine and now they are going to go after him too.

Edit- looks like he said Pat didn’t know about this.
 
Braun being new to the program ( hired this year) is a wise choice for the interim job .
But without HC experience even being FCS Coordinator of the Year in 2021 might not be enough to be made permanent , but kept on as the Wildcats DC under whoever is hired as Fitzgerald's replacement.
He'll probably be the only one on staff now that will stay
 
Braun being new to the program ( hired this year) is a wise choice for the interim job .
But without HC experience even being FCS Coordinator of the Year in 2021 might not be enough to be made permanent , but kept on as the Wildcats DC under whoever is hired as Fitzgerald's replacement.
He'll probably be the only one on staff now that will stay
Chris Klieman has done okay at KSU, who knows what this guy might be able to do. It’s an audition but in tough uphill circumstances.
 
Braun being new to the program ( hired this year) is a wise choice for the interim job .
But without HC experience even being FCS Coordinator of the Year in 2021 might not be enough to be made permanent , but kept on as the Wildcats DC under whoever is hired as Fitzgerald's replacement.
He'll probably be the only one on staff now that will stay
Did any other coaches get fired?
 
Chris Klieman has done okay at KSU, who knows what this guy might be able to do. It’s an audition but in tough uphill circumstances.
Wasn't Chris a HC in the FSC where Braun was his DC and worked under Matt Entz when he was hired to replace Klieman
Braun might make a good HC but Northwestern might want to get a out of work( as a HC) name brand to rebuild a scandal plagued program that has two bad seasons in a row and not trust it to someone with no HC experience
 
Wasn't Chris a HC in the FSC where Braun was his DC and worked under Matt Entz when he was hired to replace Klieman
Yea Klieman was a HC but I don’t make as big a deal on that as others. Some have it and some don’t and it’s always crap shoot. A good a coach can come from anywhere.

It’s a tough hill though given the circumstances and he’s not likely to get more of an audition beyond this year. But Jake Dickert took over at WSU under not the best of circumstances and he’s done solid so far. He had no HC experience either. So who knows how things will go for Braun, just have to see.
 
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