As Northwestern deals with the fallout from allegations of hazing on its football team and the dismissal of coach Pat Fitzgerald, the university has been mired in a different controversy centered on first-year head baseball coach Jim Foster, sources said.
Current and former players, alumni and people close to the baseball program told the Chicago Tribune that they alerted university administration — including President Michael Schill and athletic director Derrick Gragg — of problematic behavior from Foster starting last fall before the team kicked off its 2023 season. At least some of those complaints spurred a human resources investigation.
The university’s investigation found “sufficient evidence” that Foster “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior,” according to an internal HR document obtained by the Tribune. The probe went on to conclude that Foster “made an inappropriate comment regarding a female staff member, and spoke negatively about his staff to other staff members.”
The HR document says that the results of the investigation were shared with leaders in the Department of Athletics and Recreation “to take appropriate remedial action.” It’s unclear what action the university took against Foster, who joined Northwestern after six years at Army West Point.
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Northwestern University head baseball coach Jim Foster, left, before a game against the University of Notre Dame at Wrigley Field on May 16, 2023. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
When reached by phone Monday, Foster said university policy prevented him from speaking to a reporter without first going through the university’s communication department, which could not be immediately reached for comment.
The HR document does not go into great detail about the complaints against Foster. But current and former players and people close to the program who spoke to the Tribune anonymously for fear of retaliation said Foster’s interactions with players and staff could be cold at times, and at other times, combative.
There were incidents, they said, when Foster would launch into expletive-laced tirades directed at staff. Other times, they claim, he discouraged players from seeing the team trainer, or pressured injured players to speed up their timeline for returning from injury in fear they’d lose their spot on the team.
While these allegations were not made public, signs of trouble were visible. In February, hitting coach and recruiting coordinator Dusty Napoleon, who had been with the team since 2015, left before the first game of the season. By the time the team returned from that opening road trip, pitching coach Jon Strauss and operations director Chris Beacom had also left the team.
A month later, growing concerns over Foster’s leadership began to spread outside the team’s inner circle. In March, Northwestern graduate and longtime professional sports broadcaster Glenn Geffner emailed Gragg.
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In that email, which Geffner later shared with the Tribune, he wrote: “Eight months after Jim Foster arrived in Evanston, the Northwestern baseball program is in shambles, both on — and more urgently — off the field.”
The email went on to summarize issues Geffner wrote were relayed to him by “current and former members of the Northwestern baseball family spanning decades.”
“If the truth about what is happening at Northwestern under Jim Foster becomes widely known, the black eye on the program and the university will be severe,” he wrote.
After the team’s 10-40 season concluded, 16 players entered the transfer portal, sources told the Tribune, and at least a half-dozen players individually met with Gragg or other athletic department leaders to voice their concerns over Foster.
“The season was a disaster in every way. And the fallout is even worse,” Geffner wrote to Gragg in another email, sent in June and shared with the Tribune. “The number of young men entering the transfer portal because of Jim Foster is simultaneously frightening, embarrassing and sad. This is unprecedented in the history of our university. Northwestern has let these student-athletes down.”
