Surreal, shell-shocked

[NJcatsfan]

I don’t even know what to say or even quite how I feel about all of this. What I do feel confident about:

(1) This has been handled historically poorly by NU. Kellogg might do a case study on it. The utter lack of leadership is breathtaking. The new president botched this terribly, regardless of what one thinks of the decision to fire Fitz. “Weak” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The AD was a bad pick from the get-go (after another questionable ousting over allegations). He’s been largely MIA, and if the player tweets are correct that he Zoomed in to tell them the news & took no Q’s before logging off…I mean, wow. Horrific leadership.

(2) This will set the program back significantly in the near term, and possibly beyond. I’m waiting for more shoes to drop, in terms of fallout.

(3) This will tear apart the NU community and its fan base for quite awhile. My phone blew up today. Some people are glad he’s gone. Others reluctantly and regretfully think it was the inevitable or right call. Many/most others are furious and think it’s an outrageous overreaction. Some people I know connected to the program have been in tears. This is going to be very ugly. And I don’t think the university has the leadership to navigate these choppy waters well.

 

[T_Levine]

This, along with astrocat have really said it well today/night.

Schill may become the first one term northwestern president in over a century

I believe they have five year terms

 

[stpaulcat]

The NU Administration has finallhy revealed itself.

 

[SmellyCat]

Regardless of who lied, who told the truth, who botched it, and whether or not I believe Fitz deserved to be fired, the overwhelming sense I feel is...mourning.

I'm mourning the loss of my favorite team, my favorite coach (who I have admired for decades - he was my all-time favorite Wildcat long before he was the coach), and just the safety I felt at knowing that no matter how good or bad the team was, it was full of good dudes and led by a really good dude.

Good people do bad things, however, and we all have to make our own peace with how much we're going to accept what each of us personally believed happened. It's going to take a really long time for me to personally come back from this. I suspect many of you are the same. I wish you well on your personal journeys.

 

[2388bb]

The NU Administration has finallhy revealed itself.

Wait until you see who they hire.

 

[zeek55]

Regardless of who lied, who told the truth, who botched it, and whether or not I believe Fitz deserved to be fired, the overwhelming sense I feel is...mourning.

I'm mourning the loss of my favorite team, my favorite coach (who I have admired for decades - he was my all-time favorite Wildcat long before he was the coach), and just the safety I felt at knowing that no matter how good or bad the team was, it was full of good dudes and led by a really good dude.

Good people do bad things, however, and we all have to make our own peace with how much we're going to accept what each of us personally believed happened. It's going to take a really long time for me to personally come back from this. I suspect many of you are the same. I wish you well on your personal journeys.

I'm still at the anger phase. Sort of just feels as if Fitz let the team run wild and trusted the older leaders to police things. Maybe things were exaggerated, but even then some of this sounds like it'd be considered criminal sexual abuse... which makes it inexcusable. Forced sexual conduct while naked is never acceptable. Don't understand how the students didn't realize that.

I've never been an athlete at a high level, but even in middle/high school, changing clothes while on school teams in big restrooms was always a process you wanted to get through without making it more awkward than it already was.

The question is why did things get to this point, coaches are such control freaks over every little detail; some coaches have more staff/assistants/volunteers than players (see Florida).

But then I think about the JON hire and the process that went into that; even though it got fixed this past year, I just feel as if Fitz got a bit too comfortable as head of the program and may have let these things go assuming everything was working because we were humming for the most part before 2020.