What is next for ousted and disgraced former Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald? Will his life after the hazing scandal be a la Tim Beckman? Or something more like Urban Meyer? Or somewhere in between?
We’ve explored this idea, in guest segments on both ESPN Radio and WGN News Now.
The reality is it’ll likely be something else entirely, and the journey begins very close to home. Fitzgerald will be coaching football this fall it turns out, as the private high school where his younger two sons play.
According to the North Shore Record, Fitz will be highly overqualified volunteer asst. at Loyola Academy, the prep school in suburban Wilmette.
While Jack, his oldest son, remains a freshman tight end on the current Northwestern roster, his younger two sons, Ryan and Brenden play for the Ramblers.
While this is a volunteer position, and thus, unpaid, it is still a gig that one has to jump through hoops in order to reach. Maybe at a private institution the standards are different, but in the Chicago Public School system, you have to pass a criminal background check and a tuberculosis test, just for starters.
There is actually a lot of competition for these pro bono positions too. And I wouldn’t be surprised, given just how fresh the hazing scandal is in the collective conscious, if there’s some backlash to this news.
You read the allegations, and it’s hard to believe that everyone is going to be just like Fonzi (really cool) with all of this. Of course, Pat Fitzgerald has given a lot of his money to Loyola Academy, as he’s sent three kids there.
Can’t say for certain, but he’s probably donated a lot of money to the school, on top of that.
And as Ice-T taught us New Jack Hustla (Nino’s Theme) “ain’t no way I’m on my way out, Why?! Cuz cash money ain’t never gonna play out!
But what’s next for Fitz after this season on the sidelines doing “volunteer work”? Enter the Purple Mafia. Yes, Northwestern grads populate a disturbingly high percentage of the sports media landscape; and in the most powerful places too.
Down the line, in a year, maybe two, once his lawsuit against his former employer is settled, there will be a sit-down interview.
Once we find out how much of his back pay that Fitz receives (if any), then comes the apology tour.
And it will all start with a NU grad, somewhere somehow, who is sympathetic to the Fitzgerald cause, and in possession of a very large media megaphone.
From there, the individual brand damage, personal rehab will begin.
How will that be received?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
Tim Beckman Story Arc
The former Illini coach is the perfect example of the worst case scenario. One of his best buddies in the coaching fraternity, Larry Fedora, tried to give him an unpaid volunteer gig on the North Carolina staff.
It didn’t take as the backlash was too strong, and the optics too toxic for him to stick.
There was no coming back from that, and his coaching career was cooked after that.
He’s lived a life outside the public eye since.
Urban Meyer Story Arc
This man, simply put, is sports Trump- totally teflon, nothing sticks. Within months of that photo of him twerking with a woman (who is not his wife) and 1/3 his age went crazy viral, he was back on TV.
Both FOX and BTN just could not hire him fast enough, despite what a dumpster fire he created in Jacksonville.
Meyer just knows how to escape scandal, and how to do so with minimal damage to his brand. Even the fallout at Ohio State was minor, to say the least.
Do we even need to remind anyone about how his former wide receivers coach allegedly beat his wife, with both Meyer and Meyer’s wife aware of the situation?
Or when the heat was coming at Florida, so he got out, ahead of the storm, and he cited exaggerated cardiac issues as an excuse?
Meyer is the master manipulator at this sort of thing, and he presents the best case scenario for any disgraced coach, like Pat Fitzgerald, looking to rebuild a toxic brand.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now. Follow the website on Twitter and Instagram.