Fitzgerald and Collins: Two of a kind

CHICAGO-It’s fitting that Northwestern announced the contract extensions of football coach Pat Fitzgerald and men’s basketball coach Chris Collins together. The similarities between the two are striking.

Athletic director Jim Phillips ran down a few of them in kicking off Tuesday’s press conference at the Under Armour Brandhouse on Michigan Avenue. They were born just eight months apart in 1974. Both come from the Chicago area from similar family structures. Both were very successful college athletes.

They are so similar, in fact, that when this reporter asked to name some differences between the two, the normally smooth-talking Phillips was at a loss for words. He was flummoxed enough to again start naming similarities – “they’re both ultra-competitive, they both way overachieved in marriage (with) Stacy (Fitzgerald) and Kim (Collins), the players love them” – until he finally thought of a couple personality traits that qualified.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s musical differences,” he said. “Every time I get in Fitz’s car, it’s country music. Every time I’m in CC’s car, it’s rap and modern music. So maybe those are the differences. One’s a Sox fan, one’s a die-hard Cub fan. I’m having to stretch to come up with differences, but that’s the best I can do.”

That says a lot.

Phillips pointed out that at many schools, the coaches are engaged in a turf war for program supremacy and are no more than acquaintances. But Fitzgerald and Collins are good friends in and out of the office. They have an easy way with each other, poking fun at the other one like brothers, not coworkers.

Ask Fitzgerald what he learned from Collins, he describes picking Collins’ brain when he first arrived in Evanston about coaching elite players at Duke and at the Olympics, and working with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. But he finishes with a verbal poke in Collins’ ribs.

“How I can improve my golf swing,” he says with a laugh. “He has 12 guys (on the team). That’s my O line. He’s got a lot more time for golf. I make fun of him relentlessly for that.”

Ask Collins to name some of the other differences that Phillips couldn’t, he admits that Fitzgerald is wittier than he is, while he’s a little bit more emotional. Then he adds a zinger. “I’m better looking.”

Maybe one day Fitzgerald and Collins will have a nickname: the Dynamic Duo, FitzCollins. But for now they are Northwestern’s sports icons, the men who will lead the two biggest programs at the school for the foreseeable future.

While Phillips didn’t announce any years or dollar amounts for the new contracts, ESPN reported that Fitzgerald’s deal runs through 2026, while Collins’ would keep him in Evanston until 2025. Phillips didn’t provide any details, but he added that there were “protections” included in both contracts that would make it “prohibitive” if either coach wants to leave early.

And both coaches made it clear that the notion of leaving Evanston was the furthest thing from their minds.

“I think I’ve made that pretty clear that this is home,” said Fitzgerald. “You don’t get this type of term, I think, without making a statement that this is a mutual commitment and the commitment to doing this for a long time.”

Collins echoed Fitzgerald’s sentiments. “It’s a family decision,” he said. “My family loves it. It was never about being here to go somewhere else. I came to Northwestern to be the Northwestern coach for a long time.”

It’s hardly surprising that Fitzgerald and Collins are mirror images. After all, Phillips set out to find another Fitzgerald when he hired Collins.

Northwestern’s AD, who just celebrated his ninth anniversary earlier this month, recalled meeting with the basketball team with school President Morty Schapiro after he fired coach Bill Carmody in March of 2013.

Phillips went to the whiteboard and asked the team to name the characteristics they wanted in their next head coach. As he was writing, he realized that he knew exactly who this ideal coaching hire was.

“They were describing Pat Fitzgerald on the basketball side,” said Phillips. “That’s exactly who they were describing: a player’s coach, somebody that really cared about them, somebody that had played at a high level, somebody that understood about going to a really high-academic institution and playing sports at a high level, someone that could get them ready for life.”

Phillips wound up hiring Collins, the north suburban version of the south suburban Fitzgerald. Short of cloning, he couldn’t have done much better.

Collins grew up about 10 miles from Northwestern’s campus in Northbrook; Fitzgerald was raised about 30 miles away in Orland Park. Collins was an Illinois Mr. Basketball award winner at Glenbrook North; Fitzgerald an all-stater at Sandburg. Collins was a captain and four-year letterwinner at Duke; Fitzgerald was twice named national defensive player of the year, linebacker of the year and first-team All-America for Northwestern.

They are both very excitable and demonstrative coaches, their sideline demeanors punctuated by fist pumps and leaps. They’ve also enjoyed historical success in their positions.

Fitzgerald, who is entering his 12th year, is the school’s all-time wins leader with 77. He owns two of the three bowl wins in history, and he has coached the Wildcats to two 10-win seasons, one half of the four the program has experienced in 123 seasons of football.

Collins, of course, just took Northwestern to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history and set the single season record for wins with 24 in just his fourth season on the North Shore.

Their winning percentages are within a half of a percent of each other: Collins is at 54.9 percent (70-63), while Fitzgerald is a touch better at 55.4 (77-62).

Other than perhaps Mark Dantonio and Tom Izzo at Michigan State, there aren’t many coaching pairs like Fitzgerald and Collins, who, by the way, are almost 20 years younger than those two Spartan head men.

Northwestern’s administration has clearly upped the ante with these two long-term contact extensions, and that type of large financial commitment comes with some equally large expectations. To whom much is given, much is expected.

Fitzgerald thinks that he and Collins are now focused on one thing: winning titles at Northwestern.

“This is a program commitment; this is a commitment to a championship, a commitment to being a championship-level program in all aspects,” he said.

And for Collins, getting to the Big Dance this year was just the tip of the iceberg.

“For me, it was never about just getting to the NCAA tournament,” he said. “To me, I want to be in the mix for Big Ten championships and Final Fours and eventually maybe winning a national championship. I don’t think there’s any reason why we can’t have those goals.”

The future is very much uncertain in college sports, with a constantly shifting landscape and an annual revolving door of coaches. Yet at Northwestern, people have a pretty good idea of what the future will look like.

The football team will be practicing in its brand new $260 million palace on the lakefront that will open in the spring of 2018, and the basketball team will be playing in newly renovated Welsh-Ryan Arena, with a price tag of more than $110 million, which will open later that year.

Now the Cats have locked up for another decade or so the two men who, more than anyone, are responsible for all those cranes and bulldozers on campus, and for all of those dollars that have poured into the university.

Two men who have far more similarities than differences.

“The future,” said Phillips, “is in good hands.”