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CHAMPAIGN — Radio silence continues at Northwestern less than a week after the football program got turned upside down with the firing of Pat Fitzgerald, the team’s all-time winningest coach.
Other than press releases, there have been no public comments from school officials on the hazing scandal. It is as if Northwestern is hoping the whole thing goes away. It won’t.
Others are weighing in, including Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, a guest with Loren Tate and Steve Kelly on WDWS’ “Illini Pella Saturday SportsTalk.”
Veteran reporter Tate asked the right opening question: What are the safeguards that you have put in (at Illinois) to avoid something like that?
“We’ve put a lot of measures in place, dating all the back to shortly after I got here in early 2016,” Whitman said, “that all fall under what we call the integrity umbrella.
“As these situations arise at other schools, we always take time to study each of those situations, learn them better and think through what we can do to make sure that we’re putting ourselves in the best position possible to avoid those circumstances. A lot of the time, you can’t eliminate the risk, but you can certainly try and minimize it.”
Whitman’s athletic department attempts to identify all the “major risks centers.”
“Places where major crises generally occur,” the Illini athletic director continued. “You see those things happening in academics. You see them happen in compliance. You see them happen in student-athlete misconduct, sports medicine. We’ve taken all those things, grouped them under one line of our org chart, which has fallen under (Chief Integrity Officer) Ryan Squire now for the last seven years.”
Whitman said Illinois athletics has a number of policies dealing with hazing.
“Northwestern did too,” he said. “It’s not to say those policies are foolproof. We do a lot of education at the beginning of each year.”
There are ways for athletes to signal if there is a problem.
“We try and normalize that in our messaging to the student-athletes and make sure that they feel empowered to share those stories with us,” Whitman said.
Northwestern’s scandal gives all schools a reason to check their own houses. Make sure all is good. And consider any changes needed.
Whitman discussed the “circle of support” available to Illinois athletes that includes coaches, strength coaches, nutritionists, academic counselors, athletic trainers, mental health professionals and sport administrators.
Trouble on Rocky Top
The Tennessee athletic program is taking a huge financial hit because of extensive rules violation in football.
In an effort to keep the penalties from impacting the current athletes, the NCAA Committee on Infractions instead socked the school in the wallet. Tennessee was fined more than $8 million.
The program avoided a bowl ban.
“Well, $8 million is worth something, which I think is the most substantial fine the NCAA has levied by many fold,” Whitman said.
The Volunteers have plenty of funds, but the fine will “sting,” Whitman said.
“That’s a good start,” he added.
Tennessee helped itself by cooperating. It got rid of the personal involved.
Also, the employees, starting with former head coach Jeremy Pruitt, won’t be allowed back on the sidelines for years.
Quick hits with the AD
During 35 minutes on air Saturday, Whitman touched on a number of other topics, including …
- On Friday, Illinois announced a deal with Rhino Sports to provide staffing for its athletic events. Rhino Sports in based in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“I think our fans will notice, I hope, a more extensive staff presence,” Whitman said. “I think they’ll see a professionalized staff, a group of people who are really committed to enhancing their overall experience from the moment they pull into our parking lots until they leave at night.”
In recent years, Whitman said, the program was having a hard time staffing events, including the extensive game-day operations for football.
“We weren’t able to get enough bodies to fill all the spots that we would want,” Whitman said. “Rhino is a solution for that.”
Some past workers will be rehired by Rhino, which will also bring employees from other communities.
“This is something many, many other programs do,” Whitman said. “We are by far the exception at this point. We have never outsourced our game-day staffing to another company. This is something that our peers do across the country and puts us in line with industry standards.”
- Illinois football had three players selected in the first three rounds of April’s NFL draft, led by cornerback Devon Witherspoon — the No. 5 overall pick to the Seattle Seahawks.
“Every player who comes to Illinois has aspirations to play professionally,” Whitman said. “They want to know there is a chance to take that next step and to put on a headgear for a National Football League team on a Sunday afternoon. I think we’re just getting started. I expect we’ll see a similar showing in the draft in 2024.”
- Whitman has been a regular at Illinois men’s basketball workouts. Brad Underwood’s team is going to Spain next month for a series of games.
“It was exciting,” he said. “Good energy in the gym. A lot of experience in that room. I have really high aspirations for where this program can go this year.”
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