Three years ago, after George O’Leary got caught lying on his resume, the University of Notre Dame — the premier (with apologies to my Uncle Larry, who went to DePaul) Catholic University in the country, and one of the nation’s elite colleges in general — finally hired an African American as a head coach. Not as head football coach, but as head coach of any sport. Willingham started out brilliantly, opening his first season at 8-0 and finishing 10-3. Off the field, he recruited the kinds of students that could handle the Notre Dame workload (if memory serves, Notre Dame has the highest academic requirements for athletes of any Division IA school) and put an end to the trickle of discipline problems that had plagued Bob Davie toward the end of his tenure.
On the field, however, things took a turn for the worse. USC continued to smoke Notre Dame, and the Irish went 5-6 and 6-5 in the next two years. Yesterday, Notre Dame fired Willingham. Normally, this would just be another example of how money has created unrealistic expectations for coaches and panic among athletic directors in big time college football. But this is Notre Dame, and Norte Dame prides itself on not being the normal big time college football program.
Until yesterday, Notre Dame had never fired a coach before the end of his initial contract. Many of those coaches had much worse records at this point in their tenure than Willingham did. The man Willingham replaced had a worse record after three years and was allowed to stay. The AD of Norte Dame admitted that in every respect aside form the win loss record, Willingham had done a better job than almost all of his predecessors. And yet, the first black coach ever hired by Notre Dame became the first head football coach ever fired by Notre Dame before the end of his initial contract. it is impossible to ignore the fact that the only substantial difference between the two men — aside from the fact that Willingham recruited better students and citizens than his predecessor did — is that Willingham is black.
I very much doubt that the people at Notre Dame sat around and said to themselves “Let’s get the black coach!”. But it is undeniable that they treated the black coach different than the white coaches. It is ludicrous to argue that the school acted in a colorblind manner when it refused to give the same treatment to Willingham as it did to every other coach – who were all white — to ever coach its football team, including the man Willingham replaced. Did they deliberately set out to screw the African American? No, I don’t think so. But when the only difference is race, it seems pretty clear that Willingham’s race made it easier for Notre Dame to treat him differently than every other head football coach it has ever had. And that is a form of racism.
UPDATE: niucon corretly pointed out in comments that I had the name of the previous coach incorrect. It has been fixed.
leanleft
Kevin
tgirsch
Kevin T. Keith
Judd
Why are you apologizing to your Uncle Larry? Even DePaul alums should be aware that DePaul’s second tier at best (and IMHO that may be stretching it).
In terms of “premier” Catholic universities you’re probably talking ND and Georgetown; I can’t even think of a third place candidate right now….
And here I thought that St. Edwards, a Division 38 school in the heart of South Austin, was the nation’s premier Catholic university.
But look on the bright side, even with Tyrone out, there are still two whole African-American coaches in Division I football; that’s like 1.7% or something, or roughly 1/35th the proportion of African-American players. Freedom is on the march!
” Even DePaul alums should be aware that DePaul’s second tier at bes”
yeah, see, don’t say that around a DePaul alum
Rob Davie, not Butch Davis was the previous coach.
BOB Davie. Damn, now I look stupid.
yeah, see, don’t say that around a DePaul alum
I have, and lived to tell others of the tale. But then maybe he was a rational DePaul alum. Surely in the history of the school there has to have been one or two.
First of all, Fordham (my alma mater) is a first-tier Catholic school.
Second of all, I think the biggest difference between Willingham and prior coaches might not be race. It might be time. Big team schools feel a lot of pressure (financial and otherwise) to win games. That pressure has been increasing, and it might just have reached the point where Notre Dame caved.
I don’t think we’ll know much about Notre Dame’s new priorities until we see how they treat Willingham’s replacement. Even, then we might not really know.
I’m a little hesitant to raise the flag on this one.
Willingham may have been recruiting better “citizens” but they were horrible football players.
Two more years of Willingham would have destroyed the remnants of ND football forever.
Also, Zook at Florida went 8-5, 8-5, and 7-4 against a much more difficult schedule and got canned.
Is his firing motivated by his being white?
JohhnyBoy
1)Notre Dame and Florida are not the same place. That’s why they have different names.
2)As for the quality of the job Willinghma was doing, I disagree, but that is besides the point. The point is that as recently as five years ago, they treated a coach with a similair on the fieldrecord and more off the field problems as they have treated every coacj BUT Willingham — they let him finish out the contract. The only coach they have not let do that is Willingham, and he is their only black coach.
Brutal Hugger
As I said, I doubt they were sitting around saying lets get rid of the black guy, but I don;t think things had changed that much between Bob Davie’s time and Willingham’s.
A (more well explained than my first post) follow-up post:
1) They aren’t the same place, but they both want to be competing for more than just being bowl eligible. And I think that ND just didn’t feel like they could do that with Willingham. My feeling is that ND will never be able to compete for the national championship again, but that is beside the point.
2) Just because ND made a bad decision (in your opinion) does not mean that they were motivated by race. There are plenty of instances of blatant racism in this world, so there should be no need to fabricate a charge of one where the only circumstantial evidence of it is that Willingham was treated differently than past coaches.
In the bigger picture, it would be a good thing if we didn’t think about the color of one’s skin when discussing hiring and firing decisions. There are numerous coaching openings in college this year for which african-american coaches will compete against white coaches, and if the knee-jerk reaction to the hiring of an african-american coach to think that he got the job because of his race, it would be a great disservice to that coach (who will be thought of as not qualified), the university (who will be thought of as putting race above winning), and the public.
Where there is racism it needs to be rooted out; however, raising the race flag for any hiring or firing decision even if there is no racism is highly destructive to race relations. Hopefully, one day we can judge coaching decisions on the merits and not race.
“In the bigger picture, it would be a good thing if we didn’t think about the color of one’s skin when discussing hiring and firing decisions”
But to pretend that we are that place now is naive.
1)Which misses my admittedly rather snarky point: Notre Dame does not run its program like any other school. That is what makes its choice to be like Florida in just this one regard suspicious
2)Seeing as they reacted in two different fashion to two coaches in almost exactly the same manner, it seems clear that race played some part in it. It appears as if Willinghma would have had to be much better than the string of white coaches he replaced in order to keep his job.
Actually, Bob Davies was fired before his contract was up. He was the FIRST Head football coach that was fired before his contract expired. You might also be interested in knowing that the “student body” of Notre Dame had scheduled a demonstration demanding the firing of the coach.
Maybe that had something to do with the firing also.
norte dame should just cancel football for expecting too much for what the administration can provide. No premier athelete in the nation wants to attend ND. USF, had the balls, in the 80′s to suspend a premier basketball program because uncontrollable alumni and atheletes. The right thing to do. Norte Dame is nothing but a mid major program, until the administration understands patience and tolerance to all coaches and atheletes. They are spoiled brats.
It was racial.