Besides the obvious — what exactly happened here? — there are two pressing questions in the fast-moving, fast-growing Northwestern football hazing scandal.
For Fitzgerald, a determination of what exactly he knew — or, more importantly, should have known — concerning abusive locker room behavior will determine his future at a program he’s led for 17 seasons. The allegations were made last year by an anonymous complainant and later “largely supported by the evidence gathered” by an independent law firm.
Transparency is always the proper path here, if only because the perception that something is being covered up can sometimes be worse than what is actually covered up. America loves an unraveling mystery. Providing one just ramps up the interest and attention. Here is what the school revealed in a brief, two-page “executive summary” that it clearly hoped would get quickly forgotten.
In the end, while “players varied on their perspective of the conduct [it] was determined that the complainant’s claims were largely supported by the evidence gathered … including separate and consistent first-person accounts from current and former players.” Instead, the original complainant was apparently unimpressed with Schill’s reasoning and by Saturday he and another player were anonymously detailing the allegations in a Daily Northwestern story. Soon ESPN was on the phone as well.
This was mostly one player's side of the story. Another side is this: According to ESPN, a current player claims the former player who initiated the investigation told him of a plan to take down Fitzgerald and that"the sole goal was to see Coach Fitz rot in jail."Human nature is to assume the worst, however, and the headlines that followed reflected the lurid details, not those who came out in defense of the program.
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