With Northwestern’s much-anticipated homecoming game against Indiana this Saturday, the weekly took some time to sit down with coach Pat Fitzgerald. Our beloved Fitz discusses football, family and what he thinks about “getting purple.” What do you most look forward to about homecoming? Probably seeing our players come back that have now moved on and are out of football, to come back and enjoy the program that they built. That’s why we’re at where we’re at today, is because of those that have been here before us. Hopefully we’re paving the way for those who will come after us. The homecoming theme for this year is “Got Purple?” What are your thoughts? I think it’s a pretty good play on words. Obviously, we’d like to have everybody in Evanston, not only Northwestern, but everybody in Evanston, and Wilmette and Skokie and everybody in the greater Evanston area wrap their arms around what it means to wear purple and support not only our football team, but the entire University. I think we cohabitate with each other very well, and hopefully we’ll just continue to get the community to wrap their arms around the Northwestern experience. Your family is a big part of your life. How do you balance that with coaching a Big Ten football team? Number one, you have to have a great wife. One that’s really independent and understands that football’s more of a lifestyle, not a profession. I don’t get up at the same time or go home at the same time every day. It’s just a total lifestyle, and our family has to be totally committed to that lifestyle. It’s more cyclical with the calendar than it is maybe with the day, and the fall season is football, but then once we get done with that, that goes into recruiting season. I’m in a different city every day for six weeks recruiting student athletes, seeing them with their families in their homes. I get a little bit of time to be a dad in the summer. We have a family atmosphere. If you ever come to practice here or if you come around the office, our kids will be around. We want our players to see that. What is it like to come back and coach for a team you played for? Well, as an assistant coach it was unbelievable. I will be forever grateful to [late coach Randy] Walker and [secondary coach] Jerry Brown for giving me the opportunity to come back. Basically, I had my dream job. I coached the position I played, at the school I played at. Unfortunately, I assumed the role of head coach in very tragic and very difficult circumstances, and that’s something that I think about a lot. Hopefully, there’s a tradition that lives up to and honors coach Walker and his family as we develop our guys. It’s truly humbling. It’s a great honor and hopefully we’ll just continue to work to get better. What is your favorite part about coaching here?The people. Every aspect, from our players, our coaches, the students, the faculty, our alumni, Evanstonians, just the greater Northwestern community. The people are genuine, they’re down-to-earth. They really try to help each other; they rally around each other. I think there’s really just a family value, a family feel to Northwestern and that’s something that’s important to me and important to my family.