Pat Fitzgerald is getting temporarily sidelined.
As part of an ongoing hazing investigation into Northwestern’s football program, Fitzgerald, the team’s head coach since 2006, will start an unpaid suspension for two weeks on Friday.
Fitzgerald, who has a career 110-101 record at Northwestern since taking the head coaching job, released a statement on Friday addressing his suspension.
“I was very disappointed when I heard about the allegations of hazing on our football teams,” Fitzgerald said.
“We hold our student-athletes and our program to the highest standards; we will continue to work to exceed those standards moving forward.”
The university-led investigation, which was launched in January after a hazing complaint last November, found that “the complainant’s claims were largely supported by evidence gathered during the investigation, including separate and consistent first-person accounts.”
According to the investigation summary, the hazing incidents occurred both in the school locker room and at off-campus practices at “Camp Kenosha” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the team spent about a week of its preseason before 2020.
Following the investigation, which was led by Attorney Maggie Hickey of the ArentFox Schiff LLP firm and included more than 50 people currently or formerly associated with the program, the team will no longer hold practices in Kenosha and the football locker room will be monitored by someone who does not report to Fitzgerald or his staff.
“Hazing in any form is unacceptable and goes against our core values at Northwestern, where we strive to make the University a safe and welcoming environment for all of our students,” University President Michael Schill said in a statement.
“Our athletics programs are held to the highest standards, and in this case, we failed to meet them. I expect that today’s actions will prevent this from ever happening again.”
The Wildcats ended last season with a 1-11 record, the team’s worst since it went winless in 1989.
The Wildcats last won a bowl game in 2020 when they beat Auburn in the VRBO Citrus Bowl after an excellent 7-2 campaign.
The team will not begin preseason practices until early August, and their first game of the season is at Rutgers on Sept. 3.