Step Into My Office: Coach Fitzgerald

On last week’s Step Into My Office, our Mike Hall sat down with Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema and the week before that it was Michigan coach Brady Hoke. At 9 p.m. ET tonight on BTN, Hall takes you behind the scenes with Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald. Hall, who can be found on Twitter, @BTNMikeHall, filed a couple bonus Web-only video clips from his visit to Evanston. He also wrote a little about what it was like to hang with Fitzgerald, whose Wildcats play at Iowa at 7 p.m. ET Saturday on BTN. Watch a bonus clip now and see more at the bottom of this post, plus read Hall’s comments.

“Pat Fitzgerald gets it. That’s just the best way to explain it. He gets it. He knows the value of television, and how it can help or hurt a program. And so when he does an interview like this, he comes guns a-blazin’. My favorite example of this was at the very end of the interview when I asked a safety question: “Did I leave anything off?” And 95 percent of the time the coach will politely say “Nope.”

Not Fitzgerald. He took a second, thought about it, and then told me the coma story. He admitted he hadn’t really talked about that on camera before. That’s just Fitzgerald knowing that the more likable and relatable he comes off on camera, the better things will be for him and his program. My favorite story that didn’t make the final cut was 24 hours before his wedding his wife came down with laryngitis. Her voice was so deep that her vows sounded like she was a 60-year-old man. Sure enough, on their long flight to Hawaii for their honeymoon, she slowly got healthy, and he slowly got sick.”

Watch Fitzgerald talk about the Honeymoon sickness here:

Find out who calls Fitzgerald “Patrick,” and what it usually means:

Why did Fitzgerald enjoy growing up in Chicago? Find out below: