Kirk Ferentz has ‘great respect’ for ex-Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald despite hazing allegations

INDIANAPOLIS — Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz reiterated this week he has “great respect” for ex-Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald despite hazing allegations at Northwestern that cost Fitzgerald his job and prompted multiple lawsuits from former players.

“I’m not going to say we don’t know each other,” Ferentz said Wednesday at the Big Ten’s football media days. “We do. I have great respect for Pat. He’s a tremendous person.”

After “competing against his teams throughout the years” since Fitzgerald took over the program under challenging circumstances in 2006, Ferentz said they have been “nothing but first-class.”

“They do a great job coaching up there,” Ferentz said.

Fitzgerald and Ferentz have “had contact” since Northwestern ousted him earlier this month, Ferentz said.

Ferentz, the longest-tenured college football head coach in the country, believes it is “important right now that people let things play out” as he offered his “personal commentary” on the situation.

“There's a big difference between allegations sometimes and facts,” Ferentz said. “I doubt anybody knows all the facts right now. ... I’m not here to judge. I have no idea.”

Northwestern hired Maggie Hickey, a former inspector general of Illinois, to “conduct a thorough investigation” after receiving an anonymous complaint about hazing last November.

The university has not made the full investigative report public, but according to the executive summary, “participation in or knowledge of the hazing activities was widespread across football players.”

Several former Northwestern football players have since come forward with details of allegations of hazing, racial bias and what Northwestern’s president described as “forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature.”

Ferentz is assuming the investigations will “go deeper.”

As for hazing in general, Ferentz referenced retired NFL coach Bill Walsh’s book “The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership,” which he recently finished reading.

“When hazing and all that stupid stuff was big in the ‘70s, ‘80s, he was never a proponent of that,” Ferentz said of Walsh. “He painstakingly wanted to make sure everybody in the organization knew — whether it was the groundskeeper, whatever — they’re all 49ers.”

Ferentz said a coach “can’t make sure of anything” from a hazing standpoint. He does not “go through the locker room a lot” although other coaches on Iowa’s staff may be there more frequently.

“That's where I think it's really important that you have strong leadership internally,” Ferentz said. “It can’t just be the coaches because coaches can’t be everywhere.”

College football coaches as a whole, Ferentz believes, are “trying to build teams and create a sense of, ‘Hey, you’re a part of this.’”

“I can't imagine there is a coach in the world that really would approve of hazing,” Ferentz said. “I just can’t imagine it. Maybe I’m naive.”

Iowa has not been immune to scandals around treatment of players during Ferentz’s tenure.

More than 50 former Iowa players came forward in 2020 with allegations of racial mistreatment — allegations university-hired law firm Husch Blackwell’s investigation later substantiated.

“I don’t know how parallel they are,” Ferentz said of the respective schools’ 2020 and 2023 scandals.

Iowa and Northwestern had allegations of creating a culture where Black players did not always feel welcome. But to Ferentz’s point, the allegations against Iowa in 2020 did not include any of the sexual mistreatment and hazing that were at the heart of Northwestern’s allegations this summer.

“Anything that’s tough and causes discomfort like that, I think you try to examine, you try to listen, you try to learn and then improve in whatever way is suitable from what you learn,” Ferentz said. “That’s what we tried to do. ... You’re never out of the woods. You’re never done, but I think we have a healthy program.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com