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Pat Fitzgerald debuts dizzy bat hot dog race at close of final spring practice
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Pat Fitzgerald is trying to do more than just turn around what is now a moribund Michigan State football program.
The longtime head coach at Northwestern is also trying to have a little fun while doing it, as he showed at the end of the Spartans’ final spring practice. For those loyal Northwestern fans who cheered for Fitzgerald as a player and then watched him coach in Evanston from 2006-22, they probably became familiar with the dizzy bat hot dog race that was uniquely Fitzgerald’s on an annual basis.
Now, as Pat Fitzgerald takes over in East Lansing, with the Spartans coming off a 4-win season that included a 1-8 record in the Big Ten, he’s trying to keep things light while knowing there’s some heavy lifting to do this year.
To that end, the 51-year-old Fitzgerald officially brought the first ever dizzy bat hot dog race to Spartan Stadium, transferring a personal tradition from 1 Big Ten program to another with authority.
Here are those Michigan State football players simply doing what their new head coach told them to do, in all of their glory as spring practice winded down:
Most likely, those Michigan State players are going to need to wind down after winding themselves up with Fitzgerald’s tradition officially being launched in East Lansing.
Fitzgerald hopes to begin the process in 2026 of turning Michigan State into a Big Ten title contender. Here is what the Kalshi market is currently saying about the odds for the top teams in the Big Ten to contend for the crown this fall:
