Northwestern University has fired Jim Foster as head baseball coach just days after news of controversy surrounding him surfaced.
Foster’s firing as coach after a year was announced to the players in a video call Thursday afternoon with Northwestern University President Michael Schill and athletic director Derrick Gragg, sources told the Tribune. Assistant coach Brian Anderson, a former Chicago White Sox player who was part of the 2005 World Series-winning team, will oversee the program “during this time of transition,” the university said in a statement.
Foster could not be immediately reached for comment. University officials sent a statement from Gragg, which said Foster had been relieved of his duties “effective immediately.”
“Nothing will ever be more important to Northwestern than providing its students with a place that allows them to thrive in the classroom, in the community and competitively at the highest level and build a culture that allows our employees to thrive unfold,” Gragg said in the statement. “This was an ongoing situation and many factors were considered before arriving at this resolution. As Director of Athletics, I take responsibility for hiring our head coaches and we will share our next steps with you as they develop.”
In a message to parents obtained by the Tribune, Gragg said the decision “was based on several factors, including but not limited to the authentic feedback we received from your student-athletes in post-season surveys.”
Foster’s departure comes days after the university fired head coach Pat Fitzgerald amid a bullying scandal that Schill said has done significant harm to students and the university.
Current and former players, alumni and those associated with the baseball program previously told the Tribune that they had alerted university officials — including Schill and Gragg — to problematic behavior by Foster that began last fall before the team’s season 2023 started. At least some of these complaints led to an investigation by Human Resources.
The university’s investigation found “sufficient evidence” that Foster had “committed bullying and abusive conduct,” according to an internal HR document seen by the Tribune. The investigation further concluded that Foster “made an inappropriate comment about a female employee and spoke negatively about his employees to other employees.”
The HR document states that the results of the investigation have been communicated to those responsible at the Department of Athletics and Leisure “in order to take appropriate remedial action”. It’s unclear what action the university took on Foster, who joined Northwestern after six years at Army West Point.
The HR document does not elaborate on the complaints against Foster. But current and former players and people close to the program, who spoke anonymously to the Tribune for fear of retaliation, said Foster’s interactions with players and staff could be cold at times and combative at others.
They said there have been incidents where Foster has used foul language at staff. In other cases, they claim, he discouraged players from seeing the team coach or pressured injured players to cut back on their injury return timetable for fear they would lose their place on the team.
Although these allegations were not made public, signs of unrest were evident. In February, hitting coach and recruiting coordinator Dusty Napoleon, who had been with the team since 2015, left the team before the first game of the season. By the time the team returned from that first road trip, pitching coach Jon Strauss and operations director Chris Beacom had also left the team.
A month later, growing concerns about Foster’s leadership began to spread outside of the team’s inner circle. In March, Northwestern grad and longtime professional sports host Glenn Geffner emailed Gragg.
In that email, which Geffner later shared with the Tribune, he wrote, “Eight months after Jim Foster arrived in Evanston, the Northwestern baseball program lies in shambles, both on and more urgently off the field pitch.”
The email also summarized topics that Geffner wrote had been shared with him by “current and former members of the Northwestern baseball family for decades.”
“If the truth about what is happening at Northwestern University under Jim Foster becomes widely known, the black eye will be severe for the program and the university,” he wrote.
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After the team’s 10-40 season wrapped up, 16 players entered the transfer portal, sources told the Tribune, and at least half a dozen players met individually with Gragg or other athletic department heads to express their concerns about Foster.
“The season was a disaster in every respect. And the consequences are even worse,” Geffner wrote in another email to Gragg sent in June and shared with the Tribune. “The number of young men entering the transfer portal because of Jim Foster is frightening, embarrassing and sad at the same time. This is unprecedented in the history of our university. Northwestern let these student athletes down.”
Foster’s previous coaching stints included six years as head coach at Army West Point, two seasons as assistant head coach at Boston College, and nine seasons as head coach at the University of Rhode Island.
Former Rhode Island players who spoke to the Tribune called Foster a great leader and mentor — a teacher, tough but fair, who cares deeply about his teams.
“He was by far the best coach I’ve ever had,” said Josh Nestor, 39, who played for Foster in 2005 and 2006.
In 2011, during Foster’s time in Rhode Island, 20-year-old pitcher Joseph Ciancola collapsed while running during an outdoor strength and conditioning session with the team and died in a hospital three days later.
According to The Providence Journal, Ciancola’s family sued the university and eventually settled for $1.45 million.