A number of lawsuits have been filed in opposition to former Northwestern soccer coach Pat Fitzgerald since he was fired in July over allegations of hazing in his program. Initially, Fitzgerald was suspended for 2 weeks by Northwestern College following a faculty investigation via a 3rd occasion, however the college’s president reconsidered penalties after the varsity’s scholar newspaper — The Day by day Northwestern — started to explain the alleged hazing.

Now, former Northwestern athletic director and present Inexperienced Bay Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy has been named in lawsuits in Cook dinner County, the place Northwestern College is situated. In line with CBS Information, the pair of lawsuits come from two former Northwestern soccer gamers — who stay nameless. The gamers had been members of the staff from 2004-2005, seasons wherein Fitzgerald was an assistant coach and Murphy was this system’s athletic director.

The lawsuit alleges that black gamers had been “pressured to compete in watermelon-eating contests,” which CBS Information notes is a declare that was made in different lawsuits since Fitzgerald’s firing. Different claims embody bodily and sexual abuse.

Murphy took over as Northwestern’s athletic director in 2003, after over a decade with Colgate College in the identical position. In 2006, Wildcats head soccer coach Randy Walker died of a coronary heart assault in June, resulting in the promotion of Fitzgerald — who was then the linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator at Northwestern — to the top coach place.

Murphy would maintain that place till late 2007, when he joined the Packers because the staff’s president. Initially, Bob Harlan named John Jones as his substitute as president of the Packers in Might of 2007, however Jones took an indefinite go away of absence because of a coronary heart situation. In December of that yr, Murphy can be named the membership’s tenth president.

In 2022, Murphy said that his plan is to retire from the president place with the Packers in 2025 on the date of his seventieth birthday, July thirteenth. This aligns with when the Inexperienced Bay space is scheduled to host the NFL Draft in April of the identical yr.