The Tribune Editorial Board (“Fitzgerald and his legal wildcats roll Northwestern,” Aug. 24) believes that Pat Fitzgerald “didn’t settle in the middle,” that he “actually won” in his settlement with Northwestern University. I agree. However, the editorial also opines that “Northwestern got played. Big time.” I thoroughly disagree.
Northwestern paid the price for its rash, excessive, clumsily handled and unjustified firing of Fitzgerald, a firing for which the editorial board has again stated its support. Yes, Fitzgerald should have known that hazing occurred in his football program, but, as the board also recognizes, a “coach cannot, and never will, know everything … (that players) are doing … when he is not physically present.” Granting that Fitzgerald was responsible for all facets of his program, a suspension and requirement that he accept an in-house watchdog would have been more appropriate than a firing and national humiliation.
Fitzgerald served Northwestern for 26 years. Shouldn’t his 17-year record as head football coach, including his running a clean recruitment effort and graduating his players (epitomized by the highest Division I graduation rate for several years), have counted for something? Evidently, to Northwestern’s fumbling top executives, it did not. To this Tribune reader and Fitzgerald’s many other admirers, it did then, and it does now.
A good and decent man who had devoted his adult life to a great university was subjected to some of the worst speculation and public opinion trials in the annals of Chicago sports. Now that both sides have endured a two-year ordeal, Fitzgerald is to be criticized for emerging somewhat whole? No. And it is not fair to include in this Fitzgerald discussion Northwestern’s yearslong, nonathletics management decisions, which led to recent cost-cutting.
Fitzgerald was dealt dirt and then did what any self-respecting person would do: He fought back. It is naive to think “the great coaches of old … (would) have loved their universities too much to take them to the cleaners.” College sports history is filled with similar lawsuits.
Northwestern was not taken to the cleaners, rolled or played. It was simply held accountable in a just settlement.
— Tom Shaer, Scottsdale, Arizona
Mixed about settlement
As a Northwestern alum who remembers throwing marshmallows in the student section during games instead of paying attention to what was happening on the field, I have mixed emotions about this settlement.
I’m grateful to Pat Fitzgerald for what he accomplished on the field and on the sidelines, but I realize NU will never be a behemoth in the world of college football. That isn’t why I chose to attend school there, either.
Enjoy your money and your next job, Coach. And if marshmallows someday return to that new stadium being built in Evanston, so be it.
— R. Lincoln Harris, Chicago
Where’s responsibility?
Coach Pat Fitzgerald settles his lawsuit against Northwestern University for tens of millions of dollars. But he has never accepted responsibility for the hazing and sexual abuse in his football program. It’s ironic that he ended up coaching at nearby Loyola Academy, which has an even worse sexual abuse allegation history than Northwestern.
— Timothy Powell, Glenview
University will be fine
With a multibillion-dollar endowment, I think Northwestern University will be OK! I hope Pat Fitzgerald has a long and successful career ahead.
— Tim Ziemke, Batesville, Indiana
What is being asked
As he was testifying in 1971, Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, not yet a U.S. senator, who was wearing his drab green fatigues, famously asked the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
I would like to paraphrase Kerry here and ask my fellow Americans:
How do you ask a child to be the last kid to die in a bullet-riddled classroom? How do you ask a family to be the last family to grieve such an insurmountable loss because of a misguided interpretation of our Second Amendment?
— Elizabeth Bloom Albert, Highland Park
It will happen again
The school shooting that occurred in Minneapolis is more than sad; in fact, it goes well beyond any words currently available in the human language. But obviously, it’s not beyond the depth of depravity that resides in the mind of a psychopath.
I can’t possibly imagine what motivates anyone to point a gun at children and repeatedly pull the trigger, but it’s happened again, and it’s likely to recur as long as guns are so readily available.
It’s only been a few days now since school began, and already there are fatalities. In a Catholic Church, no less. Is there no place that’s safe from all those who mean to do harm to innocent people?
What’s truly needed is a crusade, led by ordinary citizens who refuse to be intimidated by the gun lobby or the National Rife Association, unlike the politicians they foolishly voted into office.
Until that becomes a reality and sensible gun control legislation is finally passed, it will fall upon the grieving families to bury the dead, while wishing more could have been done about all the carnage.
— Bob Ory, Chicago
Stand up for gun control
The tragic church shooting in Minneapolis is greeted with the same commentary heard after all other mass shootings: “Our prayers are with the victims and their families “ “We have to do a better job of identifying mentally disturbed people who may become shooters.” “We have to improve background checks.” All of these things have some merit but are not the answer.
The problem is guns! Guns kill people. People can’t shoot anyone without a gun. Until those in authority enact legislation restricting gun ownership and use, mass shootings will continue.
We need people in power to be thoughtful and courageous and stand up to establish proper gun controls.
— John Hester, Indian Head Park
Refuse your support
The Tribune Editorial Board says “now hope must join with action” in response to the recent Minnesota mass shooting (“Two children lost at prayer. Now hope must join with action,” Aug. 28).
Is the the editorial board now going to explicitly stop endorsing candidates for federal and state office who refuse to support an assault weapons ban? If not, it is all hot air, a waste of ink and time.
In the meantime, children and others will continue to be murdered in churches, schools, shopping malls, offices, homes and on the streets of the United States as long as assault-style weapons are easily available.
— Terry Cosgrove, Chicago
We must demand better
Another day, another mass shooting. Thoughts and prayers and flags ordered to be hung at half-staff, none of which is doing a damned thing. In a few days, this latest tragedy will be back-page news, and we will all forget how shocked we are right now. That is, until the next time, and there will be a next time and a time after that, until we demand something better from our elected officials.
The blood of all the victims in these endless shootings is on the hands of politicians who accept National Rifle Association money and on the hands of those who continue to misinterpret the Second Amendment. It is also on the hands of those who have decided that mentally ill people have the right to obtain guns but not the right to mental health care.
We, as a nation, can do better. And we must.
— Linda Burke, Indian Head Park
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