Northwestern has reached a settlement in former football coach Pat Fitzgerald’s wrongful termination lawsuit.Terms were not disclosed but Fitzgerald’s attorneys called it a “satisfactory settlement” on Thursday, per ESPN.Fitzgerald sued the university for $130 million in October 2023. He was fired in July 2023 amid allegations of hazing within the Wildcats’ program.”For the past two years, I have engaged in a process of extensive fact and expert discovery, which showed what I have known and said all along-that I had no knowledge of hazing ever occurring in the Northwestern football program and that I never directed or encouraged hazing in any way,” Fitzgerald said in a statement on Thursday.Fitzgerald, 50, acknowledged that hazing did occur during his tenure as head coach at his alma mater from 2006-22 but that he was unaware of the problem at the time.”I am extremely disappointed that members of the team engaged in this behavior and that no one reported it to me,” he said, “so that I could have alerted Northwestern’s Athletic Department and administrators, stopped the inappropriate behavior, and taken every necessary step to protect Northwestern’s student athletes.”Fitzgerald, an All-American linebacker at Northwestern in the mid-1990s, compiled a 110-101 record over 17 seasons on the sideline in Evanston, Ill. His Wildcats were 5-5 in bowl games.A statement released by the university said Fitzgerald did not condone or direct the hazing.
