Michigan State coach Pat Fitzgerald embracing his fresh start

Pat Fitzgerald wears an emerald tie these days and ends his press conferences with an enthusiastic "Go Green!" But his long, often successful tenure as a player and coach at Northwestern — which ended in an abrupt and ugly manner — still casts a long shadow. It's been three years since Fitzgerald was fired by the university amid a hazing scandal and a year after he settled a lawsuit with the school, which said its investigation did not find any evidence that he knew of or condoned any…