Fired Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald Is Now A High School Football Volunteer
One month after being fired by Northwestern amid hazing allegation, Pat Fitzgerald has landed on his feet.
Sort of.
Fitzgerald will spend the fall serving as a parent volunteer for the Loyola Academy football team -- the Chicago high school that two of his sons attend.
Probably not the same check he was cutting at Northwestern, but -- on the plus side -- Fitzgerald now gets to enjoy one of the true great American pastimes: Friday night football.
The school confirmed the big hire (?) to the North Shore Record Thursday -- one week before the Ramblers' big showdown with Catholic Central.
Rambler Pride Never Dies!
Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald face serious allegations
Full disclosure -- I have no idea if that's a chant up in Loyola. It is for one of the high school football teams down in my area, so I just went with it.
Anyway, pretty stunning fall from grace for Pat Fitzgerald, who came under absolute fire last month after some serious hazing allegations came to light -- not just for the football program, but the entire athletic department.
The university is currently facing lawsuits from more than 10 former football players over alleged hazing, sexual misconduct and mistreatment during their time with the program.
Meanwhile, a former volleyball player has also filed a lawsuit against the university claiming the team allowed severe punishment after she allegedly broke team guidelines by testing positive for COVID-19 in 2021.
Previous reports alleged that football players did naked pull-ups while offensive linemen would allegedly “lather themselves with soap and line up at the only entrance to the showers” and then “force underclassmen to squeeze past to get into the shower area,” according to the same report.
Fitzgerald was fired in July, but there's been plenty of pushback. Just this week, more than 1,000 former student-athletes sent an open letter to the university addressing the persona surrounding the culture within the athletic department.
The overall message of the letter is that the alleged actions of some don’t represent the culture of Northwestern athletics as a whole.
According to ESPN, the letter is signed by former Northwestern athletes from every varsity sport on campus, including 277 football players and four football managers.