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Longtime Northwestern football assistant coach Mike Hankwitz has spoken out for the first time amid the hazing allegations for Northwestern and Pat Fitzgerald. Hankwitz was the team's defensive coordinator for 13 years under coach Pat Fitzgerald before retiring in 2020.
Hankwitz claims he “did not doubt the accounts of some athletes. But in a phone interview, he questioned the scope of the accusations because he said he had neither witnessed nor heard of hazing from coaches, equipment managers, janitors, strength and conditioning coaches, trainers and food servers — all people who would be around Northwestern football players,” per Dana Goldstein and Billy Witz of the New York Times.
Hankwitz further expressed that, “Fitz wanted to do what was right by the players … Our first team meeting is team rules, one of which is zero tolerance for hazing. To say he sat by as this happened? I’m sorry,” Dana Goldstein and Billy Witz.
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It's hard to grasp exactly what Mike Hankwitz is saying. While on one hand he seems to indicate that he believes the players and athletes, he also sounds like he is contradicting that statement when he says that no one else knew anything about it. He also seems to doubt the role recently fired coach Pat Fitzgerald had in the hazing, or would stay silent given their anti hazing policy.
Yet even if Fitzgerald somehow did not know what was going on, he is still responsible for his team's culture, locker room, and players. Given that Fitzgerald was head coach of Northwestern for 17 years and more lawsuits detailing sexual misconduct and racism are coming out from his tenure, it's hard to not see any culpability for Fitzgerald as Hankwitz may suggest.
