Becht: Character not enough without results

In Jonah Rosenblum's column in this spot of yesterday's paper, he argued that while a bowl win would be an important milestone for Northwestern to achieve, it has more important accolades to rest his hat on. Namely, that Pat Fitzgerald's work to "mold great men" trumped any postseason success.

While Rosenblum is certainly correct that NU's first priority should be to develop athletes with strong character, to insist that success in that criteria alone is enough is to settle for a lesser school than Northwestern can and ought to be. Simply put, the bar should be higher.

The refrain of "developing great men" is one used by many a coach after an unsuccessful season. It's a way of distracting from the failures on the field.

When the Wildcats finished off a 9-4 season in 2008 with an overtime loss to Missouri in the Alamo Bowl, Fitzgerald wasn't concerned then with NU's character. Why should he? The Cats had just put together a very strong season but come up short in their bowl game. The success of the season was enough that even in the defeat of the Alamo Bowl, there was no need to resort to the crutch of "great chararacter."

NU has been and should be better than that crutch. The fact that they weren't this year means that in many ways it was a failure, regardless of senior left tackle Al Netter's selection to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team or the lack of a police record for the team.

That form of success has come to be an expectation for the Cats. While it's certainly something for NU to take pride in, for that to be enough would mean a step back for the Cats to nothing more than many other smart, but athletically unsuccessful schools.NU isn't just an Ivy League school or a liberal arts college; it's an academically anchored school, yes, but one that competes ­— and often succeeds — in one of the best conferences in college sports.

By the standards of NU's competition and the standards that Fitzgerald helped set with his success of past years, NU underachieved. For many other Big Ten schools, a 6-7 season would lead to a serious reevaluation of the coaching staff. While NU isn't of elite enough status to do that, the Cats have been successful enough to at least expect more from the people they have.

So while it's not surprise that Fitzgerald would look to draw attention away from a disappointing season on the field, we should let him do it, and we certainly shouldn't pat him on the back for it.

As Fitzgerald has said on several occasions, the Cats won't settle for moral victories. They shouldn't be settling for morals victories either.

Sports editor Colin Becht is a Medill junior.  He can be reached at colinbecht2013@u.northwestern.edu