Northwestern Football Ready To 'Stare Adversity In The Face': Braun

EVANSTON, IL — David Braun says he always dreamed of coaching football in the Big Ten, a conference that he watched growing up in Wisconsin and that allowed him to have an up-close look at Northwestern’s program in Evanston.

But since being named the program's defensive coordinator in January, the fallout from a hazing scandal that cost longtime coach Pat Fitzgerald his job this month has catapulted Braun into an unforeseen promotion to lead the Wildcats’ program on an interim basis. Just more than a week after lawsuits from former players alleging sexual hazing that they say was encouraged within the school’s athletic department, Braun spoke Wednesday for the first time since being named as Fitzgerald’s replacement.

Braun said at Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis that he will not address hazing allegations, including those that include participation by two of his current coaches. Associate head coach Matt MacPherson and performance coach Jay Hooten were both named in a lawsuit filed this week by former Northwestern quarterback Lloyd Yates.

The complaint says that Northwestern coaches not only encouraged hazing within the program but sometimes planned out events that led to players — and two assistant coaches — being "ran" in a form of "extreme sexualized hazing" that included dry-humping and other simulated football activities that were done while players were naked, according to the lawsuits.

Asked Wednesday if he would address allegations with the two current coaches on his staff who are named in the lawsuit, Braun declined to address specific allegations. He also did not answer a question about what his last conversation with Fitzgerald entailed and instead, limited his answers to the way he addressed his new team about the challenges they will face.

He said he trusted the university's handling of the controversy and said he believed administrators would address allegations with "facts", Braun said in declining to address specific allegations brought up in four lawsuits that have been filed by former Northwestern athletes in the past 10 days.

Braun called the past couple of weeks emotional, filled with "both highs and lows" but said that he accepts the challenge of trying to prepare Northwestern’s football program for a challenging season ahead.

“There’s absolute resolve and confidence from our leadership within our team of how we’re going to move forward,” Braun told reporters on Wednesday.

He added: “I challenged the group. A lot of people have been impacted by decisions made over the course of the last few weeks and our guys in that facility are going through a lot. We have an opportunity to either run from that or to truly stare that adversity in the face, stare it down, and go attack this fall an incredible story that truly embodies what this team is all about that.”

Braun is Northwestern’s lone representative at the annual Big Ten preview event that will speak to reporters. Athletic director Derrick Gragg did interviews with ESPN on Wednesday morning and was scheduled to also speak with the Big Ten Network.

The three Northwestern players scheduled to represent the program in Indianapolis announced on Tuesday that they would not, saying in a joint statement that they did not want their participation in media days to be dominated by the hazing scandal.

In the ESPN interview, Gragg called the hazing scandal “distressing” and said his heart goes out to everyone involved, namely the victims who said they were part of institutionalized hazing, harassment, and sexual abuse that attorneys said has been part of the athletic department’s culture for decades.

“As the situation evolves, we're very serious about eradicating anything that's wrong, the (university) president and the university,” Gragg told ESPN.

"Not only eradicating it but also trying to ensure, to the highest levels, that nothing like this ever happens again."

In talking about measures being taken moving forward, Gragg told ESPN, “There is no place for hazing” and “no place for misconduct.”

New Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti, who replaced Kevin Warren in the role after Warren accepted a job as the Chicago Bears President and CEO, said the league is not conducting an investigation into hazing allegations at Northwestern. Instead, it is up to the individual schools to conduct their own investigations. He said that once the league learned of Northwestern's findings, it would comment further.

Braun is now left to try to prepare a team for an upcoming season that will look dramatically different than the past 17 years when Fitzgerald ran the program. Braun mentioned Fitzgerald in a lengthy opening statement on Wednesday and said he looked forward to working for the former star linebacker before school officials fired him on July 10.

Braun said coaching in the Big Ten while coaching and mentoring his players is something he does not take lightly. He called recent weeks an “obviously very difficult time for our team, our staff, our current and former players impacted (by the hazing scandal) as well as alumni and the university itself."

He said the circumstances surrounding his sudden ascension to interim head coach are not “dream-like scenarios”. But he said recent events have crystalized his family’s purpose. He said his top priority moving forward will be that his players’ experience with the program is the “ultimate student-athlete experience.”

“We have an opportunity to firmly commit to the values of Northwestern University, to firmly commit to what this program has been built off of,” Braun said on Wednesday.

He added: "I have found a team that has come together, that truly loves each other and that has an incredible resolve to attack the 2023 season and write their own story about overcoming adversity. Let me be clear: This team will be ready to go."

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