NU president: No plans to fire advertisement over scandal

• Adam Rittenberg, ESPN

  • Senior Citizen WriterJul 24, 2023, 10:16 PM ET Close College football reporter.
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2008.
  • Graduate of Northwestern University.Northwestern president Michael

Schill said he is not considering shooting athletic director Derrick Gragg and isn’t worried about his own employment status amid the football hazing scandal and other challenges with the school’s athletic programs.In his very first interview because shooting football coach Pat Fitzgerald on July 10

, Schill informed The Daily Northwestern on Monday there is”no discussion”about Gragg’s task status and that most of the hazing allegations took place prior to Gragg’s arrival in 2021. Schill also said the “vast majority “of Northwestern’s trustees supported his decision to fire Fitzgerald, although three days previously he had announced merely a two-week suspension for the coach after the school ended up a six-month examination into hazing accusations.”I do not just make choices and simply sort of proceed to the next thing,”Schill informed the paper.”I think of what I’ve done, and I chose after additional reflection that I might’ve made a mistake in developing the 2 weeks. … I think that if a leader screws up, they must own up to it, they should take responsibility. The worst thing you can do is just pretend it didn’t occur. You recognize you made a mistake, and you fix it and you make the ideal choice, because that’s what a stand-up leader does.” Editor’s Picks Schill said he was impacted by information of the hazing claims, which a previous Northwestern player communicated to The Daily Northwestern in a July 8 story. He also said “additional allegations” and conversations with trustees and others led him to reassess the initial discipline for Fitzgerald and reach the decision to fire the coach for cause.Schill stated no

other Northwestern coaches or players have dealt with discipline as none were identified as culpable in the school’s own examination. He noted that long time football assistant Matt MacPherson was named in a lawsuit Monday as having observed particular hazing activities.

“We don’t think it’s suitable to sweep up everyone in a claims unless we can in some way substantiate the claims,” Schill stated. “In this case, up until now, we haven’t been able to tie individuals [to this], but we’re going to investigate if people come forward with names.”

Fitzgerald’s attorney Dan Webb has alleged Schill broke an oral agreement by shooting the coach after initially accepting the two-week suspension. Fitzgerald, who was fired for cause after 17 seasons leading his alma mater, has not filed a wrongful termination suit versus Northwestern. Four Northwestern players have actually submitted lawsuits versus the university, with 3 of them calling Schill, Fitzgerald and Gragg as defendants.Schill stated he at first

relied too much on Northwestern’s examination, which did not find evidence Fitzgerald knew the hazing, in identifying initial punishment for the coach. He informed The Daily Northwestern that he met investigator Maggie Hickey and her associate July 10 and discussed the “raw statement “of those they had talked to. Schill concluded that Fitzgerald had stopped working by not trying to discover what was occurring in his program.” When you hear it, one by one, one circumstances of bad behavior after another, the magnitude of it struck me a lot more,”Schill said.” I chose that the only option, the only moral option, was to terminate our relationship.”