Northwestern has reached a provisional settlement with several former football players who had filed hazing-related lawsuits against both the school and former coach Pat Fitzgerald, whose own suit against his former employer is set for trial in seven months.
In a statement, Fitzgerald's attorneys said that Northwestern attempted Monday to postpone the trial — currently slated for Nov. 3 — by nearly five months, a motion that was denied.
"Despite extensive written and testimonial discovery, there remains no evidence to show or suggest that Coach Fitzgerald was aware of any hazing at Northwestern," attorneys Dan Webb and Matthew Carter said. "The discovery has thus confirmed what Northwestern said through President Michael Schill both before and after Coach Fitzgerald's termination: that there is no evidence that Coach Fitzgerald was aware of any hazing and that, despite a thorough and months-long investigation, Maggie Hickey found no credible evidence to believe Coach Fitzgerald, or any other coaching staff, knew about any alleged hazing.
"We are not surprised, because we have always known that Coach Fitzgerald did not know of any hazing within the Northwestern football program and that he took every reasonable step possible to ensure that hazing did not occur."
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Northwestern fired Fitzgerald on July 10, 2023, just three days after the school had announced a two-week suspension for the coach in wake of an investigation into hazing allegations from a player in 2022. Multiple former players then filed hazing-related lawsuits against the school and the coach, and Fitzgerald filed a $130 million wrongful termination lawsuit in October of 2023.
Fitzgerald became the winningest coach in Wildcats history during his run from 2006-22, and he was a College Football Hall of Fame linebacker for the program from 1993-96.
"As was reported during a recent hearing, we have entered into a provisional settlement between our former student-athlete clients and Northwestern University," Patrick Salvi and Parker Stinar, lawyers for five former Northwestern players who had sued the school, said in a statement.
"While the terms of the provisional settlement are confidential, we intend to continue to work through the remaining outstanding issues to finalize a settlement that will hopefully allow both sides to move forward in a positive way."