Northwestern’s baseball team was the center of an internal investigation this year after allegations that first-year coach Jim Foster engaged in “bullying” and “abusive behavior" last season, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The report comes amid a massive scandal and investigation into hazing allegations with the football program and head coach Pat Fitzgerald. Northwestern fired Fitzgerald on Monday afternoon.
According to the Tribune, former players, alumni and others close to the program said they alerted Northwestern officials, including university president Michael Schill and athletic director Derrick Gragg, of what they saw as “problematic behavior” from Foster as early as last fall. A human resources investigation was later launched.
Northwestern found “sufficient evidence” that Foster “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior,” an HR document said, via the Tribune. Foster allegedly “made an inappropriate comment regarding a female staff member and spoke negatively about his staff to other staff members.”
That document, per the report, said the investigation was shared with athletic department leaders so they could “take appropriate remedial action.” It’s unclear what action, if any, was taken. Further specifics of the allegations are not known, though Foster’s interactions with players and staff reportedly “could be cold, at times, and, at others, combative."
Foster was hired to take over Northwestern’s baseball team last year after a six-year run coaching Army, where he won four conference titles and was named the Patriot League Coach of the Year in 2022. The Wildcats went 10-40 last season. Several longtime assistant coaches left the program in the first few weeks of the season, and 16 players entered the transfer portal after the season ended. At least six players, per the Tribune, met with Gragg or others in the athletic department about Foster’s behavior.
Fitzgerald, who played football for Northwestern himself in the 1990s and has been the team’s head coach since 2006, was suspended for two weeks on Friday after an investigation into hazing within the football program. It said it didn’t find “sufficient evidence” that Fitzgerald or his staff knew hazing was going on, but that there were “significant opportunities” for them to have learned and reported it. An anonymous former player then described the “vile and inhumane behavior” the next day, and he claimed that Fitzgerald was both aware of the behavior and encouraged it. Three former players then brought allegations of racism within the program on Monday.
Many players have defended Fitzgerald, however, and a letter sent out by “The ENTIRE Northwestern Football Team” called the allegations “exaggerated and twisted.” Despite that, Northwestern opted to fire Fitzgerald on Monday.
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July 11, 2023 at 04:55AM
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Report: Northwestern investigated baseball coach Jim Foster over ‘bullying’ and ‘abusive behavior’ allegations - Yahoo Sports
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