Last week a very high powered and successful Lazard banker was terminated for something that happened on a weekend (so arguably, not on company time). So the old “I leave the locker room to the players” line is starting to sound a little worn out.
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Yahoo and USA articles re: baseball coach, so FREE 
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You know, there are intelligent, kind athletes who walk about on college campuses? For some kids, sport scholarships are how they afford an education. Some simply love their chosen sport.
I think your take on athletes is excessively harsh.
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Interesting…I read the comment differently but can understand the issue you take. I agree that there are plenty of intelligent, kind athletes.
I had read the first paragraph (maybe naively) as literally, a positive step taken by the university to protect the current athletes on the team from the ones who took part in the hazing.
As for the second paragraph I took it as a query about the perhaps over-emphasis on collegiate sports. Personally I would be sad to see it eliminated (not going to happen) because I think it enhances the overall college experience for many.
Sure. I was a college athlete myself. It doesn’t change my opinion that American schools have a screwed up relationship with sports.
I am aware of this. It strikes me as a sad symptom of a sick system.
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The AD needs to go also with both of these situations
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Want to read about an AD allowing coaches to do anything? Read the history of U Louisville sports.
Was it hazing or bullying for the hockey coach in Miracle to make them do sprints between the lines for an hour after a game or was he building a team? Is it wrong for a coach to make students do punishment runs or do a 5 am practice because they were out drinking? When is it training and when is it hazing? I do think the coaches should know the difference and if they don’t, the AD must step in.
Any punitive conditioning violates NCAA regulations so neither one of these examples are ok.
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All that is perfectly fine and true. But by tying sports to education funding, you are creating (inter-)dependencies that don’t have to exist.
The same money that is mis-directed to athletics (including possibly tens of thousands spent by scholarship-seeking parents during childhood on travel teams, professional training camps, private sports feeder high schools) should be spent directly on funding affordable education. This way, athletes wouldn’t be in a submissive position having to play along whatever the “team’s” informal/unwritten rules dictate. Instead, they would just be students, who also happen to love and pursue whichever sports/arts/talents, in their own time and on their own dime.
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And the NU baseball coach is gone.
I can’t imagine the AD stays after all this? I’d clean house.
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When it rains it pours, NU athletics causing a full blown crisis for the school at this point…
A former NU volleyball player filed a hazing lawsuit yesterday. The hazing happened in Spring of 2021, the school’s internal investigation found hazing, a couple of games were cancelled, coach was suspended (out for some time, but details aren’t clear). News of this hazing incident hadn’t been made public as it was happening, which seems like that would have required effort in the part of many to hide it.
In a 25-page lawsuit filed Monday, Jane Doe alleges she experienced “hazing, harassment, bullying and retaliation” as a member of Northwestern’s volleyball team.
The lawsuit names Northwestern University, its president Michael Schill, former president Morton Schapiro, the school’s board of trustees, university vice president for athletics and recreation Derrick Gragg, former university vice president for athletics and recreation James Phillips, and head volleyball coach Shane Davis as defendants.
It will be interesting to see what happens now:
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Will the volleyball coach be fired? Can’t see how he can stay now, considering the football and baseball coaches were fired.
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Will the AD be fired/resign? Although this volleyball sitch happened before he was hired, this whole situation has become a crisis.
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At some point perhaps the new president may get fired too. Insert crisis comment again. Seems like a housecleaning may be in order, only issue is how high does it go.
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An even better chance now than before that NU’s new football stadium plans are delayed or dropped altogether.
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The multiple hazing lawsuits are going to cost NU lots of cash too, not to mention I expect this has an impact on fundraising and rightly so.
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I just saw a clip on our local news station with the former NU quarterback and then a segment with an audio clip from the former volleyball player’s attorney.
I wanted to read about it, so of course I Googled. There are many articles but the headline of this one jumped out to me.
Colleges across the country would be wise to immediately examine their athletic sports programs and address abusive practices/culture.
As for the volleyball situation it sounds like it was more the “Miracle-type” of punishment that was mentioned earlier in this thread.
From the NPR article:
“According to the lawsuit, the former athlete says she sustained an unspecified injury in March 2021 while running suicides — a conditioning exercise that involves sprinting different lengths across the court — as a form of punishment for allegedly breaking the team’s COVID-19 guidelines.”
“After the injury, the university responded by conducting an investigation, during which it suspended the team’s coach and coaching staff, Northwestern officials told NPR in a statement.”
The interesting point to me in the volleyball situation is that it sounds like the player was then targeted for breaking a code of silence that seems to be a part of the hazing culture.
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AD must go. He handled it incorrectly from day 1. It wasn’t important to him since he was on vacation. He could of come back immediately or at least do a remote news conference immediately. The whole culture is bad a NW and this shines the light on their sports programs. It’s a shame.
What exactly do the football coaches not understand? Seriously poor judgment wearing shirts supporting ex-Coach Fitzgerald. This is what happens when the admin doesn’t clean house after a scandal, such as NU’s hazing situation.
Have the coaches (supposedly the adults in the room) and the players forgotten they are asking their neighbors to support the construction of a new stadium? At this point, I would be surprised to see that going forward.
Meanwhile, the AD still has his job, as well as the volleyball coach. 
I foresee this whole situation as a future case study at NU’s Kellogg School of Management. Sadly. Ack.
Maybe this will be the straw that gets the AD fired, if he is one of the administrators who is named in the lawsuit.
This is a slow motion train wreck that I can’t look away from.
https://www.si.com/college/2023/08/13/three-former-northwestern-baseball-staffers-to-sue
Separately, I had sent a donation to the NU newspaper because I was so impressed with that staff for their reporting on the Fitzgerald hazing story. So far I’ve received two separate handwritten thank you notes from student staffers (my donation was not very large).
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(I decided that leaving the heart on the prior post might be viewed as reflective of my feelings about the lawsuit…it is instead about your donation for good journalism, and the fact that college students send handwritten thank you notes. Frankly, it’s not just one heart. It’s 
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Yes that was totally the intent of my 
reply also. Love this.
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Pat Fitzgerald hired as parent volunteer for the football program at a suburban Chicago private high school.
Was on the field at practice, he has two sons who play football there.
Wondering how he passed the background check?
Thursday evening Fitzgerald was back on the field at Loyola Academy, giving high fives on the gridiron to high school players.
My H and I were talking about this today. Seems like very questionable judgement on Loyola Academy’s part to have him volunteering.
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I agree. Surprised at this news, and wondering if parents will be ok with it, or if there will be pushback.
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