For the first time in the history of Chicago sports talk radio, Northwestern University athletics has garnered 110% of the attention in the market. It’s ironic because when the president (small p) Michael Schill announced to the media on Friday afternoon that head football coach Pat Fitzgerald was being suspended for 2 weeks with pay, he did so thinking the story would fade into the ether.

The specifics of the story were unearthed by the school paper and other reporters assigned to NU sports. I’m avoiding the sordid details because they make me sick to my stomach.

In situations like this at the university level, I try not to attack the particular school because I know issues arise everywhere-something about glass houses and stones. That being said, the way upper management has handled the situation has been deplorable. There has been a complete lack of leadership and how Schill has responded after the egregious handling of the suspension is an embarrassment.

That some people have held NU up to a higher standard might be viewing situations from the half-full perspective. Northwestern has never been above the fray, but because they are the underdogs in the Big Ten, they’ve been given quite a bit of slack.

It’s a very confusing situation as the person making the initial claims has been referred to as a whistleblower and not an alleged victim. Yet, I’ve heard and read that he was in fact a victim-the two terms carry very different connotations and defenders of Fitz and the school are quick to point out the negative association with whistleblower.

A fair-minded individual might question the timing of new and different allegations. That the school is having problems with the baseball program is not one of those however. Because it’s not a revenue-generating sport, people outside of the community know little about the team and their problems. It’s curious that the AD and president have eschewed their duties.

Editor’s note: I stopped playing football in 6th grade and was never in a fraternity so my understanding of what’s acceptable hazing/bonding is based on second hand knowledge. I’ve been fortunate to bond with people without fear of ruining my reputation or soiling my parents’ good name.

Without calling out Schill specifically, I’d argue we pay too much attention to authority figures’ CV. Because someone I know loves telling us where so and so went to school and the list of their degrees and expects us to buy in immediately.

Northwestern hired a supposedly capable law firm to investigate the allegations. It speaks to Schill’s incompetence that his assessment of the findings could change so rapidly after hearing more from the student paper. The guy is a lawyer for goodness sake.

When scandals ravage college campuses, the public (who might be following for purely prurient reasons) is willing to accept the schools’ explanations just because some heavily degreed administrator says so. We like to think of academia as superior to politics and public service, but it’s not.

Fitzgerald has done the sensible thing and hired an attorney who will coordinate with his agent. It doesn’t seem like Northwestern’s leadership thought this out very well. Coincidentally, I drove through the campus the other day and spotted what looked like incoming students attending some sort of orientation. While only forty years ago, it’s not what I remember from my freshman year.