The Athletic’s hit piece
- Thread starter CatManTrue
- Start date
Oh I agree that that’s not what they meant, but it was an opportunity for *all* staff and coaches and players to unify after a month of turmoil, and they missed it.
Probably a shirt with “🚫 MORE DRY HUMPING” would have been better. Purple with white lettering.
After the way Ggarg completely dissed the team with his live from Europe Zoom call, which involved him reading a prepared statement and then signing off without any questions, it is no wonder the team might have felt this way about the administration. That action alone basically impugned the entire team in the scandal, including kids who had just shown up on campus a month or two before. It has all the earmarks of Ggarg being a windchime when a more measured approach was needed. It completely dissed the team.
So the team coming out with t-shirts basically proclaiming their belief that no one (in the administration and media) supported them--or even wanted to give them the benefit of any doubt before convicting 100 guys of having a rotten culture--should not surprise any one.
Ggarg had to publicly criticize the team because he was blowing with the media wind on this. After Schill backtracked his decision, Ggarg figured he could maybe save his job by ramming his nose publicly up his boss' arse by throwing the team under the bus.
Dr. Jim would have handled this in a much more measured and balanced way without publicly impugning the team. Yeah, the t-shirts were dumb, but far, far from the sin that the media made them out to be.
Yes, if an OC is wearing it and HC didn’t know about it in advance, that’s a sign of a lack of unification.
Imagine how much more powerful the message would have been if the head coach could say “we’re all in this together” rather than “urrrm, ehhhh, free speech.”
(I don’t really care about the shirts as an issue. Just another of dozens of things done wrong in this whole ordeal.)
I have
Not read anywhere that said Braun was unaware that some players/coaches were going to wear the shirt.
I have read
Where Braun and other coaches/players have been in contact with Fitz.
Again, we don’t know what happened. Just everyone take a breath and let the facts come out. If all these allegations are true (widespread, forced participation) I will be lambasting fitz hypocrisy.
I am not sure what angers some of you guys.
The shirts are a symbol = us against the world. "We will show you".
By the way, while I am not miniscule and poor, I would have had tough time buying a tshirt like that while in school. I had to scrounge to buy a WNUR shirt while I was PD there! Ten or twenty bucks was Sunday night dinner at the Phoenix Inn Chinese place.
Who paid for the shirts? Surely not the kids? Pat Ryan?
The shirts are a symbol = us against the world. "We will show you".
By the way, while I am not miniscule and poor, I would have had tough time buying a tshirt like that while in school. I had to scrounge to buy a WNUR shirt while I was PD there! Ten or twenty bucks was Sunday night dinner at the Phoenix Inn Chinese place.
Who paid for the shirts? Surely not the kids? Pat Ryan?
I assume it's the "51" part of the shirt that draws the most ire.
As someone that has worked in PR and crisis management, do you think PF’s treatment of the media in recent years helped him at all? Do you think his approach, while typical of him, helped him at all?
Sure, NU needed better AD, Prez, any component PR team, maybe a crisis manager…but Pat brought so much of this upon himself. Only in the NU halls was he saintly. No rational outside media worshipped his footsteps like the Enablers. So when he decided to treat the media Like he treats the fans, he made himself trump-ish. He wasn’t going to get any breaks. Set his own plate.
Understand from me, my comparison was/is limited paterno and PF both claiming to have no knowledge. I acknowledge the acts are far different - nowhere near equal. But both HC claimed to know nothing and it makes zero sense in both cases. So fair to compare how people here judge Paterno v PF.
I gave Fitz a bunch of crap on these boards during the 2019 season, in no small part because I couldn't understand what was going on with the quarterbacks. Okay, Hunter Johnson wasn't setting the world on fire, but Aidan Smith was not an improvement and I couldn't understand why he was starting for half the season, and Fitz was not explaining. And then we learned the details that Hunter Johnson's mother was dealing with breast cancer and his grandmother had died and he was having a difficult time, and Fitz would rather take the heat from the fans and the press than to share the personal details that his QB was going through. That was leadership and it convinced me that Fitz truly cares about his players. I do not believe that he would tacitly support bullying in his program. Perhaps he failed in that he did not grasp what was going on.
He showed leadership in the way he handled the Hunter Johnson situation. I don't believe Schill is the type of person who would have ever done that. On the contrary, Schill will do whatever he can to avoid the heat.
It was in the presser. He was asked about it, said he didn’t know about the shirts originally but free speech…
You avoid the questions. PF has done many good, some great things. We don’t live in a world of pure good and pure evil. Ditka was fired. Phil Jackson was fired. Both did some great things.
But here’s the deal - you have fallen back to the PF did something fantastic to cover every single other act of failure. He teams have sucked now four of the last five years. He’s been an arrogant, entitled SOB during that time period. He snubs his nose at the fans, the press, anyone who challenges him…. And zero tolerance for stuff the female team managers even knew about!
So no, some fact that he helps a little old lady cross the street or even if he had personally dethroned Hitler, would give him cart blanche. He wrote his destiny to extinguish every frocking privilege granted to him - he is very rightly gone.
Any lawsuit filed on his behalf yet?
Schill fired Fitz. Fitz did not have a say in hiring Gragg or Schill. The power dynamics are pretty clear. Schill fired Fitz because if he didn’t, the mob would have turned on him and Gragg and demanded all three get fired. It wasn’t even a hard decision for Schill. Just a classic scapegoat action, especially when you consider the only guy we’re sure never did any of the alleged hazing was Fitz (minus one wild speculation that incriminates the accuser).
Buy out his contract if it's about performance.
Seems like every day, I read another post that makes me say wow. Wonder if someone will pop there head out in China by digging it so far in the sand.
Well, when he sues, cause he will sue (right?), he will get that money after a fair trial on the merits. If he doesn’t sue…
Of course Schill fired Fitz.
But you really think that Fitz had no say in his initial suspension? You really think that nobody suggested he add “but I should have known” to his statement in the press release? — the existence of the quote itself tells you that he was involved in its construction.
Did ‘the mob’ come for Fitz, or did people react when the Daily published details that the university also had, but chose to bury? (And, again, once the Daily reported, the university repeatedly denied comment. Ha!)
It was a negotiation. All three major players decided burying the story was the best course of action. And Schill was a weasel and Ggarg was touring Rome after the Daily’s reporting came out, and then Schill panicked and slashed Fitz’s throat.
But all three negotiated the suspension and everything that was released to the public prior to that.
And, for what it’s worth, Fitz *was* consulted and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to Ggarg’s nine-day predecessor. What a disaster!
The Athletic has A lot of hatred for Fitz and what he stands for. It goes way beyond football. it’s becoming obvious.
What is it he stands for that you think bothers them?
When did such seasoned, veteran posters start falling for trolls so easily?
The Athletic clearly has a dislike of Northwestern in general if they ran that crap piece.
I went to cancel my subscription and they offered me a full year for $9.99. So they’re also desperate.
To Hell with them. I’d rather give that money to @lou v and @mshelton33
I have an understanding how the world works and strong powers of inference.
Fitz got a quote when he was suspended. Fitz didn’t get a quote when he was fired. Fitz has said he had no contact with Schill between the press release and the firing, except when he was told.
Again, rehashing two months now, but all Fitz had to do was acknowledge his failing. He was too proud to do that.
I seriously doubt “all he had to do was acknowledge his failings” would have sufficed after the daily article came out. Let’s not be naive
I wouldn’t say waiting until the facts come out is naive. But you do you.
We’ll never know. But if he had accepted responsibility and a suspension with some teeth (four games seems appropriate) instead of a two-week vacation, the outrage wouldn’t have been nearly as warranted.
If Richardson goes to the Daily with the same allegations, NU can acknowledge the reporting and offer counseling to any players who would like it.
Could some have called it a slap on the wrist? Of course. But it would have been defensible, and it would have gone away.
He received zero punishment because nobody could prove he knew anything. And then it turned out that everybody else affiliated with the football program did.
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