Northwestern’s motion to dismiss the wrongful termination lawsuit brought by former coach Pat Fitzgerald was denied today, Fitz seeking $130MM.

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Go Fitzyou deserve any and everything determined by law.
 


No surprise here.

Northwestern handled this whole thing horribly and I can't imagine any jury being sympathetic to them. "We did an investigation and decided he was innocent, then we hid under our desks and when we peeked out we decided he should be fired because we looked bad!"

Horrific thing is that something apparently did happen ... and they chose to just punish the HC.

Is nobody who knew responsible except the HC? At Northwestern I guess haze all you want, it will be someone else's fault ...
 

I'd hold off on naming winners here with no settlement terms announced.
 

Some guy said:
They probably want to settle even if they are 100% sure they’ll win in court.
My money is on an undisclosed settlement for about half the buyout plus legal fees.
But we will never read the number
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I would guess this is true but we will never know
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
No surprise here.

Northwestern handled this whole thing horribly and I can't imagine any jury being sympathetic to them. "We did an investigation and decided he was innocent, then we hid under our desks and when we peeked out we decided he should be fired because we looked bad!"

Horrific thing is that something apparently did happen ... and they chose to just punish the HC.

Is nobody who knew responsible except the HC? At Northwestern I guess haze all you want, it will be someone else's fault ...
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If they paid one dollar less than the whole buyout they didn’t do horribly.
They got rid of a coach was 3-24 in his last 27 non covid games for less than the buyout

If they paid more than the buyout, they did badly


We will never know how they did
 


Some guy said:
If they paid one dollar less than the whole buyout they didn’t do horribly.
They got rid of a coach was 3-24 in his last 27 non covid games for less than the buyout

If they paid more than the buyout, they did badly


We will never know how they did
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I'm not sure how they didn't pay out a number between his contract buyout number and the number in his lawsuit.
 





Scottsdale Gopher said:
Precisely. We'll never "know" but no attorney would advise him to settle for the buyout amount (or less) given how Northwestern threw him under the bus.
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Maybe, but I'd guess that he's also been advised that he is unlikely to receive serious interest from any major college football programs (or TV gigs) until this is all behind him. Seems most or all of the player suits have been resolved, so now that he's resolved his claims, I'd expect that he'll be looking to get back to coaching in the next year or two. At some point, a lot of people just want to get on with their lives.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
Maybe, but I'd guess that he's also been advised that he is unlikely to receive serious interest from any major college football programs (or TV gigs) until this is all behind him. Seems most or all of the player suits have been resolved, so now that he's resolved his claims, I'd expect that he'll be looking to get back to coaching in the next year or two. At some point, a lot of people just want to get on with their lives.
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Right. The statement that Fitz released was no doubt agreed to in negotiation. Fitz wanted to say loud and clear and unchallenged that he had no part or knowledge of the hazing. NW wanted an acknowledgment that hazing did in fact occur, even if Fitz is allowed to say it didn't occur, while not conceding itself that Fitz took no part in or had any knowledge of it.

If Fitz wants to coach again, his name needed to be cleared. The ability to coach perhaps is intrinsically more valuable to him than a fractional portion of his buyout so he take $5 or $10 million less so he can coach.

Even if its about dollars and cents, the ability to coach at a high level and make modern high level coaching salaries for another X number of years might be more valuable than a fractional amount of his buyout. Assume he prevails and gets his buyout, but nothing more. He can't get a major college coaching job and he takes the Pelini route and is coaching at Youngstown for $400,000 per year.

Instead, now he has "cleared" his name and there is a potential for a major college coaching job again. Heck, the average coach makes $5.6 million in the Big 12. At those kind of per annums, it doesn't take long for it to make sense to take less of a buyout.

There is certainly a negotiation end point where something less than his buyout makes sense.
 





PMWinSTP said:
I'm not sure how they didn't pay out a number between his contract buyout number and the number in his lawsuit.
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There are three numbers in the lawsuit not two

0
The buyout
What Fitz wanted

I’m guessing it is between the top and bottom number. And am also guessing we will never know
 

swede2 said:
Right. The statement that Fitz released was no doubt agreed to in negotiation. Fitz wanted to say loud and clear and unchallenged that he had no part or knowledge of the hazing. NW wanted an acknowledgment that hazing did in fact occur, even if Fitz is allowed to say it didn't occur, while not conceding itself that Fitz took no part in or had any knowledge of it.

If Fitz wants to coach again, his name needed to be cleared. The ability to coach perhaps is intrinsically more valuable to him than a fractional portion of his buyout so he take $5 or $10 million less so he can coach.

Even if its about dollars and cents, the ability to coach at a high level and make modern high level coaching salaries for another X number of years might be more valuable than a fractional amount of his buyout. Assume he prevails and gets his buyout, but nothing more. He can't get a major college coaching job and he takes the Pelini route and is coaching at Youngstown for $400,000 per year.

Instead, now he has "cleared" his name and there is a potential for a major college coaching job again. Heck, the average coach makes $5.6 million in the Big 12. At those kind of per annums, it doesn't take long for it to make sense to take less of a buyout.

There is certainly a negotiation end point where something less than his buyout makes sense.
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Correct
Fitz admits hazing happened but that he didn’t know about it.
(Which is literally what northwestern claimed)

I’m guessing they paid him most but not all of the buyout
 

Some guy said:
Correct
Fitz admits hazing happened but that he didn’t know about it.
(Which is literally what northwestern claimed)

I’m guessing they paid him most but not all of the buyout
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You gotta be really gullible to believe Fitzgerald didn't know anything about it. This happened over several years. College football coaches work 10-15 hours a day....deeply involved in their players lives...but nope it's a surprise to me this was going on for years. Come on man!!!
Did administration bungle all aspects? Absolutely!
 

They wanted an excuse to fire him without having to pay a single dollar of the buyout he was due.

Tough for me to believe he settled for an amount that wasn't more than the buyout. But, as has been said multiple times, we won't know.
 

GopherGrit said:
They wanted an excuse to fire him without having to pay a single dollar of the buyout he was due.

Tough for me to believe he settled for an amount that wasn't more than the buyout. But, as has been said multiple times, we won't know.
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Tough for me it would be over the buyout considering they never accused him of wrongdoing and could’ve fired him for the buyout at any moment
 


GopherGrit said:
They wanted an excuse to fire him without having to pay a single dollar of the buyout he was due.

Tough for me to believe he settled for an amount that wasn't more than the buyout. But, as has been said multiple times, we won't know.
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Eventually they wanted to fire him.

When they got their report the first time they chose to NOT fire him and do nothing ...
 

GopherGrit said:
They wanted an excuse to fire him without having to pay a single dollar of the buyout he was due.

Tough for me to believe he settled for an amount that wasn't more than the buyout. But, as has been said multiple times, we won't know.
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This is the result of an administration being too clever by half and paying more than they wanted, which makes them fiscally irresponsible.
 




swede2 said:
There wasn't a ruling. It was a settlement.
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It’s super interesting

The university said there was hazing and the coach should’ve known about it


Years later Fitzgerald says there was hazing but he didn’t know about it.

And somehow some people think that means the coach won. Fitzgeralds statement agrees with what the university has been saying the whole time
 


PMWinSTP said:
Yes there was...to deny the motion to dismiss.
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In April - a routine litigation procedure that except in the most frivilous cases, is routinely denied. It didn't resolve the case.
 

GopherRock said:
And had they sacked him as soon as the hazing report hit the AD's desk, they could have.
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Apologies, I haven't followed closely enough to know what you're talking about. I'll have to look more into it.

I don't see why they could've done it then, getting away scot-free, but then later did it and lost (having to settle is a loss in my book, as opposed to being able to fire for cause with no lawsuit that had enough merits to force a settlement)
 

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