Northwestern University fired its longtime football coach Pat Fitzgerald in July 2023 after allegations of hazing within the football program were revealed.
“I recognize that my decision will not be universally applauded, and there will be those in our community who may vehemently disagree with it,” university president Michael Schill wrote in a letter to the school community at the time. “Ultimately, I am charged with acting in the best interests of the entire university, and this decision is reflective of that. The damage done to our institution is significant, as is the harm to some of our students.”
Fitzgerald was entering his 18th season as head coach at the school, and his tenure was tied for the fourth longest among current Division I coaches. The 48-year-old compiled a 110-101 record at his alma mater, including a 5-5 mark in bowl games. His 110 overall wins and 65 Big Ten victories are both school records.
Fitzgerald was originally suspended for two weeks for the hazing incidents before a pivot by the university. The firing leaves the program reeling following a 1-11 season.
Here is a timeline of Fitzgerald’s tenure at Northwestern, the hazing scandal that ended his career there and the lawsuits that followed.
June 2006: Fitzgerald is hired a week after the sudden death of Randy Walker, who was only 52 and suffered an apparent heart attack. At 31, Fitzgerald became the youngest coach in Division 1-A. He was on Walker’s staff as a linebacker coach and had starred as a linebacker at the school. As a player, he led the team to its first Rose Bowl appearance since 1949 and remains one of only two two-time winners of the Chuck Bednarik Award, which is given annually to the nation’s top defensive player.
2008: Northwestern finishes with a 9-4 record, its most wins since Fitzgerald’s final two seasons as a player. Before that, the school had served for decades as a punching bag for Big Ten opponents, and hadn’t won nine or more games since 1903.
2012-2020: Northwestern wins 10 games three times, as well as five bowl games. In 2018, Fitzgerald was selected as Big Ten Coach of the Year, and two years later, the school ended the season ranked 10th in the country.
November 30, 2022: The university receives a complaint from an anonymized email address alleging hazing in the football program, according to the school’s executive summary of the investigation. Northwestern hires an outside investigator Maggie Hickey, who is a lawyer at ArentFox Schiff and former executive assistant U.S. attorney and inspector general of Illinois.
December 2022: The complainant speaks with the investigative team and alleges that hazing activities often occurred in the locker room and may have started in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the team regularly held training camp. Hickey’s team ultimately interviewed more than 50 people affiliated or formerly affiliated with the football program and reviewed hundreds of thousands of emails and player survey data dating to 2014.
January 2023: Northwestern publicly confirms it initiated an investigation into hazing allegations after ESPN reporter Adam Rittenberg broke the news on Twitter.
July 7: Northwestern releases the executive summary of the investigation but no details of the findings. It determined that the complainant’s claims were “largely supported” by the evidence gathered, but it did not uncover any specific misconduct by any individual football player or coach. However, participation or knowledge of the hazing activities was widespread across the program.
“The investigation team did not discover sufficient evidence to believe that coaching staff knew about the ongoing hazing conduct,” according to the summary. “They determined, however, that there had been significant opportunities to discover and report the hazing conduct.”
The report revealed that Fitzgerald was suspended for two weeks, effective immediately, while listing seven other mandates, including the end of training camps in Kenosha; the implementation of an anonymous tool for reporting hazing incidents; and locker room monitoring by someone who does not report to the football staff.
“I was very disappointed when I heard about the allegations of hazing on our football team,” Fitzgerald said in a statement at the time. “Although I was not aware of the alleged incidents, I have spoken to university officials, and they informed me of a two-week suspension.”
“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.”
July 8: The Daily Northwestern reports that a former player informed the school in late November 2022 that, as a freshman, he was victimized by a hazing ritual known as “running.” It involved 8-10 upperclassmen dressed in masks “dry-humping” a victimized player in front of his teammates while in a dark locker room. The abuse was punishment for making mistakes in practice and was especially common during training camp and around Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were deemed “Runsgiving” and “Runsmas.”
“The carwash” was another hazing ritual in which players would stand naked at the shower entrance, spin around, and rub up against those entering the showers. The player also detailed naked center-quarterback exchanges involving freshmen.
President Schill releases a note to the community after the story by the school newspaper. “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,” Schill wrote. “Clearly, he failed to uphold that commitment, and I failed to sufficiently consider that failure in levying a sanction.”
Schill says that he just learned who reported the allegations because of the confidential nature of the investigation. He contacted the family to offer his apologies and attempted to reach out to the young man—Schill did speak with the complainant the following day. Schill adds that he would engage with the school’s leadership to “assess future steps.”
The “ENTIRE” Northwestern football team also releases a statement that day in support of Fitzgerald: “Throughout his tenure, coach Fitzgerald has consistently prioritized the well-being and development of his players, and we stand behind him in his unwavering commitment to our team.” The letter calls the accusations “exaggerated and twisted” and says their intention was to tarnish the reputation of the program, players and coaches.
July 10: Fitzgerald is fired. Schill says the decision came after a “difficult and complex” evaluation of his original decision to suspend the coach, which he says was his decision alone.
“Since Friday, I have kept going back to what we should reasonably expect from our head coaches, our faculty and our campus leaders,” Schill writes. “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 reveals more details of the investigation, including that 11 current or former players confirmed hazing had been a part of the college football program for “many years.” The hazing included “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature” and was “clearly not a secret within the program.” Some players believed the hazing was in jest, but others viewed it as “causing significant harm with long-term consequences.”
Fitzgerald releases his own statement Monday night, saying he was honored to coach the team. He also stresses that the investigation, “reaffirmed what I have always maintained—that I had no knowledge whatsoever of any form of hazing.”
He hints at a possible lawsuit when he writes that the suspension was part of a “mutual agreement,” and he was “surprised” the agreement was “unilaterally revoked . . . without any prior notification.”
Northwestern is expected to name defensive coordinator David Braun as its acting head coach.
Oct. 5, 2023: Fitzgerald sued the university and Schill in a Cook County, Ill. trial court, seeking in excess of $130 million. In the lawsuit, Fitzgerald claimed Schill’s “callous and outrageous misconduct” has destroyed his career and “irreparably and permanently” damaged his reputation.
Nov. 13, 2023: Northwestern elevated David Braun to be the football program’s full-time head coach; Braun was named acting head coach on July 14.
Aug. 21, 2025: Fitzgerald’s lawsuit against Northwestern and the university president has been settled. Terms of the settlement were not released. Fitzgerald released a statement via lawyers at Winston & Strawn, saying “I am satisfied with the terms of the settlement.”
This story has been updated since the original publish on July 11, 2023 with additional news.
