As expected, former Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald has sued the university and its president in the aftermath of Fitzgerald’s termination.
Fitzgerald lost his job following the backlash to a wrist-slap punishment for hazing issues in the program. The backlash included reporting from the school newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, regarding the extent and nature of the hazing.
Fitzgerald claims, among other things, that when he accepted a two-week, unpaid suspension, he was told that there would be no further punishment. The termination, Fitzgerald contends, amounts to a breach of that contract.
Via the Chicago Tribune, Fitzgerald also has accused the school of “callous and outrageous misconduct in destroying his career.”
Northwestern quite possibly is experiencing the time-honored reality that no good deed goes unpunished, although it’s debatable as to whether the deed was a good one. Arguably, Northwestern hired an outside investigator whose subtle, or otherwise, goal was to find a way to explore the matter without plunging the program into chaos. Then, after that tentative outcome materialized, reporting from the school’s own student newspaper blew the lid off of the situation.
And that, as they say, was that.