Former Ohio State football defensive linebacker Joshua Perry believes that there is a lot of healing that needs to go on at Northwestern following the program’s recent hazing scandal. And that healing process needs to begin now, with the season opener at Rutgers football now six weeks away.
Northwestern, still reeling from last week’s dismissal of head coach Pat Fitzgerald, has an almost impossible task in Perry’s eyes to get on track and pull the team together. Recent allegations of hazing led to the firing of Fitzgerald, the long-time head coach who led the Wildcats to 10 bowl games in his 17 years with the program.
Perry said that David Braun, hired in January as Northwestern’s defensive coordinator and now the interim head coach, must pull this team together. The process must start, Perry said, by regaining the trust of the team.
Perry, appearing on the ‘Tim May Show,’ was uncertain how Northwestern can get past this and be looking forward to Rutgers.
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“I have no idea. Honestly, like this is not something that I think is in any of the handbooks or manuals on how to build a team during training camp,” Perry told May.
“I think he needs to have conversations with everybody, one on one, and I think he needs to see where they’re all at. in that conversation, I think should also have a – if you feel like you were a victim of any of these things, and you have unresolved feelings about it, we have resources through our athletic department to help with that. That part of the conversation should be (that) you came here for a reason that was bigger than football.”
Braun will have to hit the ground running to get his team together. Brought into the Big Ten program in January, Braun was the defensive coordinator at North Dakota State. Considered a bright, rising name in the coaching ranks, Braun’s first job as a head coach comes right now as he looks to stabilize a program in crisis.
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Perry says that not only will Braun have to navigate these unusual circumstances, but he also will need to find leadership within the program that isn’t tainted by the hazing scandal.
“And I think that the leadership on that team needs to be examined because the guy who’s trying to the guy who’s trying to lead the team as – the player who’s trying to lead the team through this can’t be the same player that was over there doing the car wash in the shower, right? Like they can’t do be the same guy. There’s no way that can happen,” Perry said.
“Or else you fired your head coach, and then all of a sudden, you still got the same guy in the locker room who was the ringleader? That doesn’t make very much sense to me. And so I think there’s a lot of honesty that needs to happen. A lot of honest conversation and a lot of looking in the mirror and just face to face and it’s going to – I think it’s going to be a long process.
“I mean, I don’t I don’t have very high expectations for this football team. But I think this season is more than just about football for these guys. I think it’s truly about rebuilding a culture and the community within that team.”
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