“This book is for journalism students. In a world where the pressure to be first often outweighs the responsibility to be right, I hope you always look in your heart and pursue the truth. It is the most solemn responsibility of freedom of the press. Realize your mistakes will have consequences for real people." –Dedication for the book
Paterno Legacy: Lessons from the Life and Death of My Father.
In late June 2006, after the tragic death of Northwestern Head Coach Randy Walker, assistant coach Pat Fitzgerald was pressed into the role of head coach. He was a few months shy of turning 32 years old. As a two-time All-American who played at Northwestern this was his dream job. But that dream job was attained after a nightmare scenario.
Suddenly he was heading a Big Ten football team dealing with the shock of loss just a few weeks from the start of the season. He handled the moment with class and dignity.
For the next 17 seasons his teams were resilient, successful on the field and excelled in the classroom. Among coaches who knew him and competed against him, Pat had a well-earned reputation for integrity and ethics.
Coaching can be a cutthroat business and all you ask for is a level playing field. You learn to recognize the characteristics that you would want in a coach you compete against on gamedays and in recruiting. Pat Fitzgerald was the kind of guy you’d want your son to play for.
So, when the allegations that came forward led to Pat’s firing, none of it made sense. But in the panic of the day and the reaction to some negative publicity, the university rushed to judgment, issued a bogus report and wrongly fired him.
For those of us who have lived through scenarios like this, these become personal. You recognize the script for a rush to judgment thrown down like thunderbolts from supposedly superior people whose motto is: Truth be damned, expediency gives us the mantle of moral certainty!
Student journalists drove this Northwestern story, and their mistakes drove the decisions of professionals who should know better.
Phil Knight once wrote about the
“period between current events and history” and in that period a lack of patience creates the gravest mistakes. But due process and truth has emerged to correct the story about Pat Fitzgerald. The period where history supplants expediency’s current events mistakes has come.
Northwestern has settled Pat’s litigation. Northwestern acknowledged what Pat said all along, that he did not condone nor was he aware of any hazing in his program. He did nothing wrong.
Financial settlements mean one thing, but for people whose integrity is questioned, words that acknowledge an uncompromised integrity have the realest value. It may seem quaint in this era of money and power valued over everything, but for some people truth and integrity mean so much more.
But there is no getting back what was lost. There is no way to undo the dark days, the voices of accusation and condemnation that certainly were a dark cloud over the lives of Pat and his family. He cannot get back that time lost, his dream job and the loyalty he gave to the university.
The consequences of flawed agenda-driven reporting were handed down by school leaders that lacked the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the panic of the moment to ascertain the facts. The loyalty one man gave to his university deserved to be weighed against unproven allegations.
And that goes back to the dedication of the book written 11 years ago and quoted at the top of this piece. That dedication was because reporters made massive mistakes covering that case, mistakes later contradicted by facts. Reporters made massive mistakes covering Pat Fitzgerald.
The reporter walks away, but the people they’ve trashed have to live with very real consequences
Again and again, we continually refuse to learn the lessons of our mistakes. The money still resides with being first over being right. The money still resides on clicks over sustained investigation of the truth.
Now two years later, respect to Northwestern’s administration for acknowledging they were wrong and for publicly clearing Pat Fitzgerald’s name. But still, it does not undo that which has been done. The mistake lies in a lack of leadership by a generation of leaders that lack spine in the face of public criticism.
Northwestern has finally done the right thing. It shows that it is never too late to get past the period of current events to the final truthful draft of history. I certainly hope that opens the door for Pat to get a chance to coach again. College football could use a man like him right now.
Link to article
www.nytimes.com
