Hickey: Northwestern prez Michael Schill is the biggest dolt in college sports

It’s easy for us to focus on the idiot.

Indeed, such a focus is impossible to avoid when dealing with a wholesale fool.

But what about the idiot behind the idiot? We tend to forget their contributions when there’s a big enough dingus running interference for them.

At the surface level, Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is the obvious nitwit of the month in college athletics.

At Pac-12 Media Days, Kliavkoff offered this doozy of an answer when asked about the potential of programs defecting to the Big 12.

“It’s not a concern. Our schools are committed to each other and to the Pac-12. We’ll get our media rights deal done; we’ll announce the deal. I think the realignment that’s going on in college athletics will come to an end for this cycle. The truth is we have bigger fish to fry. There are incredible opportunities and also challenges in front of college athletics. I need to be able to work with all of my colleagues in Division I and particularly in the A-5. We’ll do that and move past kind of all the bitter squabbling of the last year and work together to make college athletics better.”

If Kliavkoff has bigger fish to fry, he’s going to need a bigger pan. Within days of his tone-deaf, -blind and -dumb statement, Colorado voted to leave for the Big 12 in 2024.

Beginning next year, Kliavkoff will preside over the Pac-9 — but only if matters don’t get even worse for the conference before then.

That being the case, you may be wondering how it’s possible for there to be a bigger buffoon in college sports than Kliavkoff. But there is. And it’s not just Pac-12 predecessor Larry Scott who takes the all-time cake.

There is, in fact, a standalone Supreme Dolt in college sports right now. He’s the guy who hired Kliavkoff for the job he can’t do.

Former Oregon president and current Northwestern president Michael Schill.

Where there’s a Schill, there’s a way (to screw up)

Schill is probably a very fine legal scholar and law professor. Perhaps even an effective university president in all areas other than athletics.

But in that one aspect of his job, it would be hard to do much worse. It’s the glaring hole in his game, like throwing interceptions were for Jay Cutler or Jameis Winston.

Last week provided the most obvious example.

Since the firing of 17-year coach Pat Fitzgerald, Schill has done nothing but embarrass himself and Northwestern University.

It begins with the firing. Or initial lack thereof.

Schill initially suspended Fitzgerald for 2 weeks in the middle of the summer. After Northwestern’s student newspaper reported about the extent of hazing in the program, Schill reversed course a couple days later and fired Fitz.

Schill then admitted to The Daily Northwestern that he hadn’t read the entire report — just a “summary of the raw material.”

It wasn’t until, you know, actually doing his due diligence that Schill changed his mind regarding Fitzgerald’s employment status. Mind-boggling.

Fitz wasn’t the only Northwestern coach fired in recent weeks. Or so we thought. Baseball coach Jim Foster got the axe after just 1 season due to widespread complaints of mistreating players and staff members.

But then Schill revealed that Foster hasn’t actually been fired.

Jim Foster – NU’s 2022-23 head baseball coach – was not fired, as had been reported by many outlets including The Daily.

President Michael Schill told The Daily Foster has been placed on “indefinite suspension.”

“He wasn’t fired,” Schill said. “He won’t be coaching again.”

— The Daily Northwestern (@thedailynu) July 27, 2023

Who exactly is driving this clown car?

Either fire Foster for cause, or suspend him until you’ve completed an investigation into player claims.

If it turns out to just be sour grapes from players, why are you paying 2 coaches at once? And if the claims are valid, why pay Foster at all?

Clearly this is some legal ruse intended to avoid litigation, but it makes Northwestern look pathetic.

Yet another of Schill’s failures was on full display at Big Ten Media Days.

Interim coach David Braun became the first person to answer any questions about any aspect of what’s happening at Northwestern in a press conference setting.

Braun, who has only been at Northwestern since January and therefore has not seen any hazing incidents. Braun, who has never been a head coach and likely never dealt with a press conference larger than a handful of local Fargo media at North Dakota State. Oh, nor has he ever even served as an assistant coach at the FBS level.

Given his lack of experience, Braun handled himself extremely well for being thrown to the lions. But it’s stunning that Schill failed to mandate that athletic director Derrick Gragg answer these questions first.

Incredibly, Northwestern was prepared to send 3 players to deal with the media before Gragg. Understandably, those players pulled out on the eve of the event.

If Schill doesn’t think Gragg is capable of handling the heat, then why does Gragg have a job that demands it?

Again: who is driving this clown car?

Schill, of course.

The designer of the Pac-12’s death knell

In football terms, Larry Scott took over a conference that had the ball inside the red zone on its opening possession and somehow ended up in a 17-0 first-quarter hole.

His replacement had some heavy digging to do. But in the right hands, saving or even strengthening the Pac-12 was still possible.

As chairman of the Pac-12 CEO Group, Schill was responsible for finding that person. He settled upon Kliavkoff, the president of entertainment and sports at MGM Resorts.

Fittingly, it was a gamble. Schill doubled down on 11. And in his defense, it was the right idea. This was at the vanguard in finding someone who could navigate the sports media landscape ahead of a college sports lifer.

But in Kliavkoff, Schill was dealt a 3 of clubs.

Colorado stopped buying Kliavkoff’s “Hey, we are TOTALLY about to get a media deal done” act. And now it’s the Pac-12 that appears finished.

In old-school Vegas, guys who tried buying more time the Kliavkoff way ended up at the bottom of Lake Mead. (And are just now being found.)

OK, maybe that’s a bit extreme as far as analogies go. But it is proof that such a method of bargaining is often ill-fated. And you’d think a Vegas guy would be cognizant of that.

In a scene that’s now completely fitting, Kliavkoff was introduced as the Pac-12 commissioner in Herm Edwards’ conference room at Arizona State. Really. Can’t possibly make that up.

https://twitter.com/SunDevilRay23/status/1392930532569194498?s=20

And now Kliavkoff’s tenure will be remembered the same way as Herm’s: an experimental disaster of epic proportions.

Which is not how Schill saw things going.

“I will pat ourselves on the back,” Schill said on the day of Kliavkoff’s hire. “We made a great choice in George. And we’re excited to have him lead our Pac-12 to greater glory in the future.”

It’ll look great on the epitaph.

One can only hope Schill isn’t in the process of writing another for Northwestern athletics. But he certainly appears capable of doing so.

Alex Hickey

Alex Hickey is an award-winning writer who has watched Big Ten sports since it was a numerically accurate description of league membership. Alex has covered college football and basketball since 2008, with stops on the McNeese State, LSU and West Virginia beats before being hired as Saturday Tradition's Big Ten columnist in 2021. He is an Illinois native and 2004 Indiana University graduate.