A Good Make-Up Call for Irish

Notre Dame took a bold, historic and progressive step Monday when it hired Tyrone Willingham as football coach, but we’re going to hold off on nominating the school for a Nobel Prize.

The Irish should be commended for making Willingham the first minority head coach in the history of Notre Dame athletics, but let’s not forget, this is the same guy who could have been hired three weeks ago.

Did Willingham improve that much as a coach in the time Athletic Director Kevin White first took a pass on him?

Actually, no. In his last act as head farmer on the Farm, Willingham’s Stanford Cardinal laid an egg in the Seattle Bowl, losing to Georgia Tech on Dec. 27.

The Cardinal looked totally uninspired, and emotional lapses are usually blamed on the coach.

What took place between the time White received permission to speak to Willingham, but never did, and Monday’s news that Willingham would lead Notre Dame football was not an epiphany of civil rights.

Rather, it was a case of the worm turning.

Three weeks ago, White’s cursory pursuit of Willingham smacked of political appeasement and looked like a smokescreen. He jetted to California in early December after receiving permission to speak to Willingham about the job. Instead, he secretly sounded out other left-coast candidates, Jon Gruden of the Oakland Raiders and Steve Mariucci of the San Francisco 49ers.

When neither man could be pried from his post, White made a beeline for Atlanta and hired Georgia Tech’s George O’Leary.

African American leaders in the business of tracking minority hires were not especially amused that Willingham might have been used as a red herring in this coaching search.

“I felt that it was kind of a slap in the face,” Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches Assn., said Monday.

As we know, though, the O’Leary hire blew up in Notre Dame’s face on Dec. 15 when it was learned the new coach had falsified biographical information.

O’Leary resigned five days after accepting the job.

The whole sordid mess checked in at 10 out of 10 on the Notre Dame humiliation meter and White suddenly was in a desperate situation of having to save face for himself and the university. Everyone knew White needed to hit a home run on his second chance ... or else.

Hey, what about Ty Willingham?

Not only did the Stanford coach have an impeccable reputation--a must in the aftermath of the O’Leary fiasco--but making Willingham the first black coach in Notre Dame history would make White’s second-chance hire unassailable.

Keith says he doesn’t much care about the motivations or machinations behind Willingham’s hiring, only that Notre Dame got it right in the end.

“I think there’s a greater power in all of this than anything else,” Keith said. “I think Tyrone was supposed to be at Notre Dame. What transpired before, I really don’t know. I’m going to give Notre Dame credit, and I’m going to give the selection team credit and I’m going to give Kevin White credit for making the hard choice.”

In the end, whatever the means or motivation, Notre Dame got it right.

The Irish got a quality coach who comes complete with all the dull attributes that might have soured the school on Willingham in the first place.

If you’re of the opinion the Notre Dame coach needs to have a little Blarney in him, a la Lou Holtz, then Willingham is not your man. Although fronting a public relations giant is part of being the coach, Willingham is probably not going to work the student body into a frenzy during the Friday night pep rallies at the Joyce Center.

Willingham is a serious, cerebral type. He is meticulous and fastidious. He speaks in calculated clips. You picture him stepping up to the rostrum at his first Notre Dame pep rally, opening his day organizer, and diagraming for students the intricacies of the “cover 2” defense.

Unlike Holtz, Willingham is not going to drip like hot wax his love for the Notre Dame, or sandbag his opponents, or affectionately refer to an annual service academy opponent as “the University of Navy.”

At face value, Willingham’s seven-year record of 44-36-1 at Stanford is worse, by percentage points, than the five-year record that led to Bob Davie’s dismissal.

Yet, Stanford and Notre Dame are completely different football animals. What Willingham accomplished amid relative indifference in Palo Alto is not to be dismissed.

He was twice named Pac-10 coach of the year, in 1995 and 1999, and led the Cardinal this year to a record of 9-3, only the eighth time in school history a Stanford squad has won at least nine games.

What’s more, with less talent, he defeated Notre Dame two out of the last three years. No one would deny that Notre Dame, year in and year out, recruits higher quality athletes than Stanford.

As Keith said, “It’ll be nice to see what he’ll be able to do with a Mercedes.”

On the flip side, not only will Willingham have to endure the scrutiny all Notre Dame coaches deal with, he also will be under additional pressure in his position of being the most high-profile minority coach in sports.

His success or failure may dictate how many other minorities land Division I coaching jobs.

As it stands, only four of the nation’s 117 Division I football coaches are black.

“It’s still less than 4%, so whom are we kidding,” Keith says of the minuscule progress made on this front. “But in a positive vein, with this being the type of job that’s considered one of the most prestigious jobs in the country, it serves notice to those involved making those decision that we need to examine the capabilities of those individuals that are qualified. What I’m saying, in the bigger picture, is that there are other Tyrone Willinghams out there.”

Keith hopes Willingham will kick-start a sport that has been dramatically derelict in putting minority candidates in top-level coaching positions.

The Southeastern Conference, for example, has never had a minority head football coach.

“Take note, SEC,” Keith said, “that Notre Dame made this decision.”

Keith thinks Willingham will answer the challenges, on the field and off, but no one is saying this is going to be easy.

In Monday’s on-line edition of the South Bend Tribune, there was, coincidentally juxtaposed, a picture of Willingham opposite a story about the Ku Klux Klan’s increased presence in Indiana.

A farm in Osceola, not far from the Notre Dame campus, has in the last year become the home of Richard Loy, the Klan’s grand dragon in Indiana.

Last year, before Christmas, the Klan held a party that included a cross burning on the farm.

It is encouraging to report that South Bend Tribune columnist Nancy J. Sulok’s story about the Klan’s presence tells of how many in the community are rising up to fight the organization’s infiltration.

The point only underscores that Willingham-to-Notre Dame is more than the story of a coach and a university coming to contractual terms.

Willingham’s hiring changes the complexion of college football.

Doors for black college basketball coaches were kicked open, thanks to the successes of George Raveling, John Chaney and John Thompson. Willingham has a chance to do the same in college football.

“One of these days the phone calls won’t have to be about us saying, ‘Hey, a minority got hired here,”’ Keith said.

“We can just say a quality candidate got hired.”

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The Road to South Bend

A look at Tyrone Willingham’s coaching career:

Previous Experience

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Year(s) School/Team Position 1977 Michigan State Graduate assistant 1978-79 Central Michigan Secondary 1980-82 Michigan State Secondary, special teams 1983-85 North Carolina St. Secondary, special teams 1986-88 Rice Receivers, special teams 1989-91 Stanford Running backs 1992-94 Minnesota Vikings Running backs 1995-2001 Stanford Head coach

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At Stanford

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Year Overall Pac-10 Bowl Game, Result 1995 7-4-1 5-3 Liberty Bowl lost to East Carolina, 19-13 1996 7-5 5-3 Sun Bowl defeated Michigan St., 38-0 1997 5-6 3-5 None 1998 3-8 2-6 None 1999 8-4 7-1 Rose Bowl lost to Wisconsin, 17-9 2000 5-6 4-4 None 2001 9-3 6-2 Seattle Bowl lost to Georgia Tech, 24-14 Totals 44-36-1 32-24 Four bowl appearances

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