NU preps for season with anti-hazing program
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Northwestern athletic director Derrick Gragg praised the school’s football players and coaches for displaying “collective resilience” in preparing for the season, including their participation in anti-hazing training last month.
Gragg, who will attend Sunday’s season opener against Rutgers alongside university president Michael Schill, told ESPN that the team has “done everything we’ve asked them to do” since the firing of longtime coach Pat Fitzgerald on July 10 in the wake of hazing allegations against the program.
Northwestern brought in Protection For All, a consulting firm run by former college athletes Mike McCall and Dan Beebe — also the former Big 12 commissioner — to conduct in-person training on Aug. 3, before the team’s first preseason practice.
The training, which all Northwestern teams will go through before the start of their seasons, covers physical and emotional harassment, discrimination, retaliation, bullying and sexual misconduct. Northwestern also had players meet with the Institute for Sport and Social Justice, which addressed topics such as inclusive leadership, bystander intervention and team culture.
The anti-hazing seminars were conducted in groups, starting with players only and then only with coaches.
In firing Fitzgerald, Schill said the Northwestern football culture had been partially “broken” by the hazing allegations, which were largely supported by a university-commissioned external investigation into the program.
“It was an intensive three-hour-session and [the consultants] said after about the first 10, 15 minutes, guys were relaxed, participating, understanding what they were supposed to do, and did everything that they were asked to do,” Gragg said. “I think everybody understands the importance of conducting themselves in a first-class manner, as it relates to being representatives of themselves, and their families and to this university.
“I think they took it very seriously.”
Beebe told ESPN that Northwestern is “committed to get to the right place,” and can benefit from learning about the consequences of hazing and other misconduct from people outside the program.
“You’ve got to put the cards on the table and recognize no matter what the issues are, people have different viewpoints, whether it’s hazing, sexual misconduct, all that,” Beebe said. “We’re risk managers and we’re here to tell you what the risks are going to be. Whether you agree or disagree, these are the issues that are going to come up when you have certain kind of conduct that’s going to degrade and humiliate other people.
“We’re there to explain what conduct you cannot engage in, or you’re going to have the risk of public scrutiny and legal action.”
No Northwestern players are facing discipline in the hazing scandal, as none were named in the school’s investigation or in any of the lawsuits filed by more than 10 former players against the university. Northwestern has looked into allegations involving Matt MacPherson, the team’s associate head coach and defensive backs coach, but he has continued to work and will coach in Sunday’s opener.
Gragg told ESPN that he does not anticipate further personnel changes with the program, although the university will investigate any specific claims against individuals if they surface. After a surge of lawsuits from former players in July and early August, none have been filed in the past few weeks.
Gragg commended interim coach David Braun and the staff for “keeping the team together.”
“They were committed to that from the start when we first convened a meeting with them back in July, and they’ve stayed true to that,” Gragg said. “They put in a great deal of work, not just obviously during camp, but for the last few months. I’ve been personally to many practices. I’ve watched them. The group seems spirited, they seem engaged, and I think they’re very well prepared and they’re well-organized. They’re ready to go.”
Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is conducting reviews of Northwestern’s overall athletics culture and the reporting systems for hazing and other misconduct. Gragg met virtually with Lynch for the first time Friday. Lynch’s reviews are likely to extend into 2024.
Lawsuits have been filed by a former volleyball player and by three former baseball staff members, alleging abuse. Northwestern has held several meetings with all of its sports’ head coaches since the hazing allegations came to light.
“The coaches, they want people to know that no one should be painted with a broad brush,” Gragg said. “We’ve had some challenges, but by and large, what they’ve built here collectively, especially at a school with high academic performance, is nothing short of amazing.”
In his first interview since Big Ten preseason media day, Gragg responded to an open letter sent Aug. 21 by 86 former Northwestern athletes, which criticized him and Schill for “a clear failure of unbiased and principled leadership” in how they handled Fitzgerald’s firing. The former players said Gragg’s repudiation of a T-shirt worn by players and coaches expressing support for Fitzgerald “worked to incite public opinion against his own program,” and that the athletic director “fosters an environment of uncertainty, distrust, and censorship” in the athletic department.
“When you’re in a position like this, leadership on this level, you have to come to expect scrutiny, criticism,” said Gragg, who was hired by Northwestern in 2021. “There’s a lot of emotion, again, a lot of relationships that are tied into this situation, and I understand that. … At the end of the day, whether people are supportive of the leadership or not, or the decisions that were made, I always go right back to the student-athletes.
“They really need our support right now. Their lives have changed dramatically.”
Gragg said Northwestern has avoided a large drop-off in season-ticket sales. (The team plays its home opener Sept. 9 against UTEP.) Northwestern’s plans to rebuild Ryan Field also remain on track, he said, as former board chair Pat Ryan and his family, who are largely funding the plan, are “still very interested in moving forward with the project.” Gragg said two of Ryan’s sons recently attended practice to meet Braun.
Northwestern will begin its search for Fitzgerald’s permanent successor later this fall, as Gragg said his focus remains on the current team.
“We’re just asking everybody, continue to support us, support the student-athletes,” he said. “We’re moving forward, we’re excited about this year, and we have a great deal of inner support. I’m excited about being the leader here.”
The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the 2024 season as favorites to win the World Series and, after defeating the New York Yankees in five games, they indeed celebrated with champagne come October.
According to ESPN BET, the Dodgers are looking very likely to win the World Series again in 2025, opening as +400 favorites to repeat, and now sitting at +300.
The New York Yankees sit at second on the odds board at +800 to win the World Series with the New York Mets (+850) and Atlanta Braves (+900) at third and fourth respectively.
A trio of teams sit just behind the Braves at 12-1 each — the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies.
Note: Odds are as of publication time. For the most up-to-date odds, visit ESPN BET.
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Greg Wyshynski
Jack Eichel has been starving. The 4 Nations Face-Off is his sustenance.
The Vegas Golden Knights center said he has waited years for another “best-on-best” hockey tournament for himself and his peers. “The generation of the players that are currently in the NHL haven’t had that opportunity to all play together,” he told ESPN.
The NHL’s 4 Nations Face-Off brings together four hockey powers — the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland — in a midseason tournament played in Montreal and Boston. Now Eichel gets to wear the red, white and blue with Auston Matthews and Jack Hughes. Connor McDavid gets to wear the maple leaf next to Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby. William Nylander shares a Swedish locker room with Victor Hedman and Erik Karlsson. Aleksander Barkov can sling passes to Mikko Rantanen and Patrik Laine.
The players acknowledge that the 4 Nations Face-Off is more borne out of necessity — a combination of compressed scheduling and the conundrum of Russian participation — than an ideal best-on-best event.
“Obviously it’s not exactly what we want in terms of … we’re missing some great teams. I think of the Germany or Switzerland or the Czechs, so many different teams,” McDavid told ESPN. “But it’s just exciting to have best-on-best again. You know, four great teams. It’ll be a pretty fun competition and a prelude to the Olympics.”
How will the 4 Nations Face-Off play out, starting tonight with Canada vs. Sweden at Bell Centre?
Spoiler warning: It’ll play out exactly like what I’ve written below. Or maybe it won’t. Either way, enjoy 4 Nations!
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Alden Gonzalez
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Five years ago, Mookie Betts stood in the middle of a clubhouse here and introduced himself to new Los Angeles Dodgers teammates by basically telling them they needed to master the details in February if they wanted to hoist the trophy in October.
On Tuesday, at the unofficial start of a season in which the Dodgers will face immense expectations, Betts relayed a similar message.
“We can’t keep thinking about being champions again,” Betts said on the day many of the Dodgers’ players underwent their preseason physical exams. “We haven’t even played Game 1. We have to take care of spring training, and then when Game 1 comes, then Game 1 comes. But we can’t keep talking about the World Series.”
It wasn’t long ago that the Dodgers resembled something like a Greek tragedy — continually fielding star-studded rosters and dominating regular seasons, only to absorb massive disappointment in the playoffs. That all changed last fall, when one of the Dodgers’ most injury-ravaged rosters overcame the deep San Diego Padres, dispatched the plucky New York Mets and made quick work of the sloppy New York Yankees to capture the franchise’s first title since 2020 — and its first in a full season since 1988.
The Dodgers followed by doubling down on what was already one of the most decorated rosters in baseball history, guaranteeing close to $400 million to nine players: Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Teoscar Hernandez, Michael Conforto, Kirby Yates, Hyeseong Kim, Roki Sasaki, Enrique Hernandez and Clayton Kershaw, the latter expected to be official by Wednesday.
The Dodgers’ competitive balance tax payroll for 2025 projects to be in the neighborhood of $385 million, according to Spotrac, about $65 million more than the second-place Mets. Through it all, they’ve become the target of complaints about the state of the sport. Owners have held up the Dodgers’ financial capabilities in their push for a salary cap. Fans have bemoaned their use of deferrals — most notably with Shohei Ohtani, who earmarked $680 million for his retirement — to get deals done. Executives have chastised the Sasaki recruitment process, believing his signing with the Dodgers to be an inevitability.
“People are always going to find something to complain about,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “We’re just trying to take care of our business and put ourselves in a good spot to make the postseason.”
Major League Baseball has not had a repeat champion since the Yankees won their third in a row in 2000, but the Dodgers have a good chance. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA, which runs thousands of simulations to project win totals for the upcoming season, has the Dodgers at 104 victories in 2025, at least 11 more than any other team.
The reasons are obvious. The Dodgers’ rotation — featuring Snell, Sasaki, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and, eventually, Ohtani and Kershaw — is among the best in the sport at full strength. Their lineup — with Ohtani, Betts, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernandez, Muncy, Will Smith, Conforto and Tommy Edman making up eight spots, possibly in that order — is one of the fiercest in history. And their bullpen, already a strength, has added Scott and Yates to a group featuring Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Alex Vesia, among others. If dynasties are still possible in an unpredictable sport with an ever-expanding postseason field, the Dodgers seem primed to become one. But it’s not something their players want to publicly embrace.
Their own playoff failures have taught them that.
“The thing about this sport is, it doesn’t matter what kind of roster you have — time after time, teams have shown that you get into the playoffs, anything can happen,” Muncy said. “You look at the Diamondbacks a couple years ago, they made it to the World Series with [84] wins. And technically, they improved last year — they had 89 wins — and they didn’t even make the playoffs.
“It’s one of those things where, all you have to do is get into the postseason and anything can happen in this sport. You can have the best player in the world in this sport, and he can’t always take over like in other sports, where if you have the best player on the court in the NBA, he’s going to take over a game for the most part. It’s not so much that way in baseball. That’s why it’s always a unique challenge trying to get to the World Series.”
And so, Dodgers players spent a lot of their time Tuesday dismissing questions about dynasty-building and chasing the all-time regular-season wins record — 116, set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs and the 2001 Seattle Mariners — and instead talked about the importance of maintaining their edge.
The Dodgers won’t host their first full-squad workout until Saturday, but the majority of their infielders — minus Freeman, who is back in L.A. going through the final stages of rehabilitating his surgically repaired right ankle — have spent the better part of the past two weeks taking ground balls at Camelback Ranch. The same can be said for the majority of their pitchers, who have started their throwing programs early in anticipation of a regular season that will begin March 18 from Japan.
Muncy has taken that as a sign that this team is “hungrier than ever.”
“We didn’t win last year because we were talking about the World Series every day,” Betts said. “I think we won last year because we talked about the task at hand. I think we have to continue to talk about the task at hand and not worry about the end goal. We have an end goal, of course, but you have to take steppingstones to get there and not worry about getting there. We’ll get there when we get there.”
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