Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald fired; players speak on hazing allegations
Ousted coach releases statement to ESPN
EVANSTON, Ill. (WLS) -- Northwestern Wildcats football coach Pat Fitzgerald has been fired.
Northwestern President Michael Schill released a statement Monday afternoon, saying, "This afternoon, I informed Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald that he was being relieved of his duties effective immediately."
Schill previously said he may have made a mistake in the punishment handed down to Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was suspended for two weeks without pay, as disturbing allegations continue to emerge about hazing within the football program. He released a statement to ESPN on Monday night:
Former and current Northwestern football players have been speaking out in the wake of hazing allegations, sharing their own stories.
READ MORE: Ex-Northwestern player says coach Pat Fitzgerald 'failed' by not stopping hazing
Schill said during the course of the investigation, 11 current or former Wildcat football players acknowledged the hazing has been ongoing, and even more former players confirmed "the hazing was systemic dating back many years."
According to Schill, the hazing included "forced participation, nudity, and sexualized act of a degrading nature" that clearly violated school policy. The president said to his knowledge no student was physically injured as a result of the hazing.
The hazing was well-known by many in the program, Schill said, though he allowed there was no "credible evidence" that Fitzgerald himself knew.
"The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team. 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. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others," Schill wrote in his message to the Northwestern community.
Future team leadership announcements will be coming soon, Schill said.
ABC7 spoke with former Wildcat Ramon, who asked his last name not be shared. Ramon was 18 when he first arrived on campus, and playing for Northwestern football was a dream come true.
"I was so thrilled to be playing the game that I love, the excitement of playing in the Big 10 for a prestigious university," he said.
But, he said that dream quickly turned sour. As one of the only Latinos on the football team at the time, Ramon said he became the target of abuse by players and coaches.
"They shaved 'Cinco de Mayo' in the back of my head, and then there was a specific occurrence. My position coach said, 'Hey, I know you grew up on dirt floors, but you need to clean up around you here,'" Ramon recalled.
He said the abuse was carried out in public, usually within the position group she trained in.
"It's always under the guise of joking or team bonding. I never felt like it was OK to be Latino," he said.
But, his claims were just the tip of the iceberg. Similar to the allegations in the Daily Northwestern, he claims there was a ritual called the "car wash" in which players would stand naked at the entrance to the showers, forcing others to go through them.
"A car was is having your genitals rubbing up on someone else's genitals," Ramon said. "And, I never felt like anybody could leave the shower when that was happening. Nobody told us we were forced to sit there, but we were also not allowed to not go through the car wash."
Over the weekend, the university's student-run newspaper ran an interview with a former player, who described in agonizing detail sexualized hazing practices he said routinely take place inside the locker room. One common practice, called "running," involved a younger player being restrained while eight to 10 older players engaged in a sexualized act in the locker room. Versions of "running" took place during certain portions of the year, including Thanksgiving and Christmas.
"It's a shocking experience as a freshman to see your fellow freshman teammates get ran, but then you see everybody bystanding in the locker room," the former player told The Daily Northwestern. "It's just a really abrasive and barbaric culture that has permeated throughout that program for years on end now."
According to the newspaper, the former player reported his claims to the school in late 2022, and he spoke to investigators during the university-commissioned probe, whose findings were released Friday.
In a letter sent to ESPN claiming to be signed by the entire Northwestern football team, players called the allegations "exaggerated and twisted" also adding that "Northwestern football players do not tolerate hazing."
"Hazing goes against or values of respect, integrity and personal growth. It is disheartening to see that the allegations brought forth against our team have been exaggerated and twisted into lies. These fabrications have been made with the intention of harming our program and tarnish the reputation of our dedicated players and coaching staff," the letter said. "We firmly deny the validity of these accusations and stand united in our assertion that they do not reflect the true character of our team."
Ryan Field, the home of Northwestern Wildcat pride, suddenly stands in shame for some longtime ticket holders.
"I didn't care if they ever won, lost. I always felt like this is the way college athletics should run, and we were developing great people here," said Art Mollenhauer, a former season ticket holder.
Willy Steiner lives in Evanston.
"His reputation is sullied," Steiner said of Fitzgerald. "I don't know how you recover from this, which is unfortunate, because he's a good football coach."
"Reform needs to happen from the ground up," Ramon said. "If you remove Pat, you're just going to put somebody else there from the program and you're not going to uproot the systemic issues that are hurting and ruining people's lives."
There have also been allegation of "bullying and abusive" behavior by the head coach of the Northwestern baseball team. A spokesperson for the Northwestern Athletics Department released a statement, saying, "Our department's annual review of all aspects of the Wildcats baseball program is ongoing. The well-being of our student-athletes remains Northwestern's top priority."
ESPN contributed to this report.
