SCANDALIZED BY SEXUAL HAZING, NORTHWESTERN IS AS DIRTY AS THE REST

Regardless of how much he knew, popular football coach Pat Fitzgerald should be fired after ugly allegations: Upperclassmen subjected younger teammates to group “dry-humping” in a dark locker room

     Because they think they’re smarter than us, when they’re clearly not, the high lords of Northwestern University tried to protect their popular football coach from an explosive scandal Friday. They attempted to soft-spin and cover up the crude, ugly, humiliating details from a six-month investigation. In the end, they had no defense, as they realize now with shame on their faces and guilt in their souls.

     If Pat Fitzgerald even vaguely knew about hazing in his program that allegedly involved trapped sexual coercion — specifically, a group of eight to 10 masked upperclassmen “dry-humping” younger teammates in a dark locker room if they made mistakes in games or practices — then he should be fired before I finish these words with a period. And if Fitzgerald didn’t know anything, which I have difficulty believing, he still should be removed for an egregious lack of oversight.

     Once a former player spoke to The Daily Northwestern about a custom known as “running” — dry-humping carried out at certain times of the year, even the holidays — those same high lords couldn’t have flip-flopped quicker after the story was posted Saturday. Did they actually believe, in their ivory tower on the shores of Lake Michigan, that there wouldn’t be a national and local outcry?

     “I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and it’s just absolutely egregious and vile and inhumane behavior,” said the former player, adding: “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. It's just a really abrasive and barbaric culture that has permeated throughout that program for years on end now.”

     Did Fitzgerald know? How could he not have known — and how could he fail so miserably to protect his players? It was happening often. And it was happening in the locker room, inside the facilities where he has worked for years. “It’s done under this smoke and mirror of ‘oh, this is team bonding,’ but no, this is sexual abuse,” the former player said. “Everyone would just be looking at each other and be like ‘bro, Fitz knows about this,’ because you wouldn’t take that action otherwise. Everyone joins in, because he’s the head coach.”

     And to think only hours before, after acknowledging it knew of the player’s allegations from the university-commissioned probe, Northwestern’s response was to suspend Fitzgerald for merely two weeks without pay with training camp still weeks away. The unacceptable rationale: There wasn’t enough evidence to support that the head coach and his staff knew about the incidents. This was a cowardly institutional compromise, intended to satisfy all, admitting in one breath that the player’s claims could be “largely supported by evidence” — and then, in the next breath, insensitively describing him as an “anonymous whistleblower.”

     All of which suggests Northwestern was viewing the aggrieved player more as a menace than as a student-athlete haunted by repulsive hazing in a sexualized group setting. It’s unfathomable that president Michael Schill could rise to the level of university leadership and originally downplay a horror known as “the carwash” — older players standing at the entrance of the locker-room showers and forcing younger players to “basically (rub) up against a bare-naked man,” according to the former player, whose stories were confirmed by a second player who spoke to The Daily Northwestern. Did Schill actually try to normalize the existence of a naked quarterback-center exchange between freshmen who played those positions? How far would he go to protect the beloved Fitz? Is this 1971?

     Not until Fitzgerald’s weak suspension was disgraced by the player’s full disclosure to the student newspaper, which broke the story that both Chicago newspapers missed, did Schill realize he had no recourse but to admit he’d been too lenient with the brief suspension. He and Fitzgerald were called out, basically, by a brave young man. Let’s see if the university, as a whole, is as sickened as the rest of us. Let’s see if heads roll.

     They’d better. As it is, Northwestern will lose prestige in academia as an Ivy League-model beacon in the Midwest. Anything less than Fitzgerald’s prompt dismissal will lower the school toward a gutter occupied by Penn State, where Joe Paterno closed his eyes to a serial molester named Jerry Sandusky.

     “In determining an appropriate penalty for the head coach, I focused too much on what the report concluded he didn't know and not enough on what he should have known," Schill wrote in a letter to the university community late Saturday, on a weekend when he spoke to the accuser directly. "As the head coach of one of our athletics programs, coach Fitzgerald is not only responsible for what happens within the program but also must take great care to uphold our institutional commitment to the student experience. ... Clearly, he failed to uphold that commitment, and I failed to sufficiently consider that failure in levying a sanction.”

     The fallout is damning to a university that is supposed to represent the finer things in life — but often does not. A responsible president does not tap his coach on the wrist, then come back and issue a mea culpa that he “may have erred in weighing the appropriate sanction.” Only when the former player stepped forward and spoke publicly did the university realize it was exposed. Fitzgerald isn’t the only one whose job should be in jeopardy. Schill should be in similar hot water for his wishy-washy reversal. They tried to finesse their way out of trouble — and conveniently bury the uncomfortable details as the complaints of an anonymous player — and they look much worse for doing so.

     It’s shocking to think such repugnant events still can happen on a campus, at a time when America tries to evolve from the stone ages of male rituals. It’s deplorable that hazing debacles could be so out in the open, with no apparent concern for repercussions. Where was Fitzgerald? After generating periodic, surprising success at a program with moderate expectations among alumni and boosters — it’s a Chicago statute that everyone must love Fitz, the family man whose teenaged son committed to play for him, the hometown hero who was considered for hire by the Bears — did the coach make the mistake of thinking he was above the law? That hazing was just fun and games, as it probably was when he starred for the Wildcats in the mid-1990s? When the two-week suspension was announced, Fitzgerald said he was “very disappointed” and claimed he was “not aware of the alleged incidents,” promising better discretion. "Northwestern football prides itself on producing not just athletes, but fine young men with character befitting the program and our University," he said. “We hold our student-athletes and our program to the highest standards; we will continue to work to exceed those standards moving forward.”

     No one believes the “fine young men with character” line anymore. Who were the upperclassmen orchestrating the hazing? It shouldn’t be difficult to uncover the names. The former player requested anonymity so his future isn’t smeared. Anyone who understands the extent of the university’s tentacles, fueled by a powerhouse roll call of alumni and boosters, grasps why he needs to lay low. Unfortunately, they already know who he is, and if my dealings with Northwestern can serve as a backdrop, he’s in for a rude behind-the-scenes awakening.

     Gee, the naive might say, doesn’t the school have an impeccable reputation? Isn’t it a baby Ivy? Consider the alums who went on to mighty careers in business, Hollywood, law, politics, music and journalism. Gosh, didn’t Stephen Colbert cut his chops there? Pharrell Williams? J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois governor whose family name is plastered on everything in Chicago but Italian beef? Saul Bellow? Hugh Hefner, before the harem? Cindy Crawford, after the mole? Meghan Markle, pre-Harry?

     And sports? Hasn’t Northwestern always placed fun and games in their proper perspective? Ted Lasso could have coached there, correct? Participation trophies count. Winning is illusory. Losing is the true testament to character.

     Let’s end the facade right there.

     The latest bombshell isn’t the first time alarming revelations have surfaced out of Evanston. Northwestern is as dirty as any of them yet often has been protected, more or less, by media companies who employ alumni as executives, editors and reporters. I was impressed to see USA Today weigh in with robust commentary about Fitzgerald as early as Saturday. As I write Sunday morning, I’m still waiting for similar outrage from the Chicago newspapers. Shouldn’t top editors at the Tribune and Sun-Times draw parallels to a scandal involving the Blackhawks? Senior management of the NHL franchise was accused of not taking immediate action in 2010, when a player said he was sexually assaulted by a team video coach as the Hawks were en route to a Stanley Cup. The organization still hasn’t recovered from mass firings and the accompanying shame.

     Schill, too, refused to take stern immediate action.

     Back when I was a Sun-Times columnist, an NU football player named Rashidi Wheeler collapsed and died on a hot summer day — during an Evanston workout conducted outside the NCAA’s authorized offseason timeframe. The university aggressively fought his mother’s demands for a settlement in a prolonged back-and-forth, and I defended Wheeler because an ambulance hadn’t been positioned on the practice field to take him only a short distance to a hospital. Wheeler’s mother, Linda Will, called me at all hours of the day and night from Los Angeles, knowing I was the only one in an ethics-conflicted city who would air her family’s side of the tragedy. She eventually won a $16 million settlement but not without pain. She hoped the school would construct a statue of her son outside Ryan Field. She’s still waiting.

     I also sat in the Pittsburgh living room of a Northwestern player, Hudhaifa Ismaeli, who said he was introduced to drugs within the football culture of coach Gary Barnett. At the time, in the mid-‘90s, a team symbolized by Fitzgerald’s defensive prowess was celebrated as a miracle by fans who never dreamed the Wildcats would reach the Rose Bowl. The next year, Ismaeli tested positive twice for marijuana and was suspended from the program for a year. Home-schooled in his formative years, he said he never felt part of Northwestern life. You couldn’t fairly blame the school for his weed use, but if he became dependent during his time as a player, Barnett’s program did have something of a drug problem that was allowed to fester.

     Even I was subjected to the boorishness of a former Northwestern football player, Rick Telander. We were column colleagues at the Sun-Times — a good combination of writing styles — but some of his antics bordered on intimidation. He wanted to go outside and fight, for unspecified reasons, during halftime of a Bulls game in Washington. Later, he admonished me when I was working out at a health club in the north suburbs, and when I returned home, a blog item on a silly website placed me in the same health club that night. An appearance on a local public-affairs TV show, “Chicago Tonight,” became a farce when I was shown a video clip of Telander ripping me for some reason. I could dismiss it with a laugh.

     From that point on, we just called him Biff.

     In a much different context, years later, many players in the Northwestern locker room will be haunted by dry-humping and the “carwash” and the naked center snap and other awfulness that took place. The serious nature of hazing is summarized in university policy, which forbids hostility that produces “mental, physical, or emotional discomfort; servitude; degradation; embarrassment; harassment; or ridicule for the purpose of initiation into, affiliation with, or admission to, or as a condition for continued membership in a group, team, or other organization, regardless of an individual’s willingness to participate.” Also prohibited is “sexual activity, whether actual or simulated, engaging in degrading or humiliating games, activities, stunts or buffoonery …”

     Did Pat Fitzgerald ever look at the handbook? He might have plenty of time to catch up on his reading.

###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.