Sad Day In south Bend

If you believe in equal opportunity in sport, Tuesday might have been the saddest day in the history of American college football. I was in a state of disbelief when Dr. Fritz Polite, my colleague at the University of Central Florida, emailed me that Ty Willingham had been fired from the University of Notre Dame. I thought he was joking. Dr. Polite knows how closely I follow the situation of the dearth of African-American head coaches in Division I-A football.

I have been so involved that when Fitz Hill resigned from San Jose State just over a week ago, we hired him as a visiting scholar and research fellow in our program at UCF. Hill was one of the five African-American head coaches who started this season in Division I-A.

I also knew that Tony Samuel, the head coach at New Mexico State, had been dismissed last week, leaving only three of the five who began the season still in place. I was confident that Willingham, Karl Dorrell at UCLA and Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State were safe. Dorrell and Willingham both had teams headed for a bowl game, while Croom was in his first year.

Kevin White Notre Dame AD Kevin White brought Ty Willingham to South Bend, only to fire him three seasons later.

Notre Dame, in spite of a difficult loss to top-ranked University of Southern CalifornI-A last weekend, was still 6-5 this year, and played one of the more grueling schedules in college sport.

Having watched ESPN with Sportscenter, ESPN2 with Mike and Mike and ESPN with PTI, I am struck with one inescapable realization:

If I was a college Athletic Director at any level, or a college President at any level, I would be extremely hesitant to hire a black coach for any sport. In fact, if my decision to fire someone is to be analyzed and scrutinized with racial overtones to the nth degree, I would not even consider hiring a minority coach.

All the talking heads are lamenting how Faust and Davies got to fill out their contracts but Willingham is now gone with two years left on his contract. However, no one has stated the obvious that maybe Notre Dame has decided to bite the bullet early instead of later on when the program has gone a way they do not want it to proceed any further and not repeat the errors which saw Notre Dame football become a mere shadow of itself.

As a life-long Notre Dame hater (like another FReeper posted, my favorite college team is anyone playing against Notre Dame) it pains me to write this about Notre Dame at a time when I should be gloating. But I have noticed that whenever any black coach or baseball manager is fired, the sports media seems to always bring up racial aspects and ignore all else in the reportage.

Note to excerpt police: I am not sure of posting policies with regard to ESPN.com, so I have done so on the side of "practicing safe posting." The link should take anyone who wishes to review the entire article directly to Page2 on the ESPN site.

This is the main reason why teams are reluctant to hire black coaches. Big-time college and pro sports are aimed at one thing and one thing only, winning. If a coach can't win, he is fired.

Problem being is that if you fire a black head coach, the revrun jasson and his ilk will scream "racist!" at the top of their lungs. Therefore it's easier to not hire a black coach than to take a chance on one.

Willingham was fired because he couldn't get the job done. Yes he is a talented coach who won at Stanford, but each situation is different. All things being equal, he would get another chance at another school, but the thing holding him back is the "blame whitey" crowd led by Jethie ans Al Tharpton.

"If I was a college Athletic Director at any level, or a college President at any level, I would be extremely hesitant to hire a black coach for any sport. In fact, if my decision to fire someone is to be analyzed and scrutinized with racial overtones to the nth degree, I would not even consider hiring a minority coach."

~in the first place.
Since you expressed my sentiments quite nicely I added a small detail to round out the thought.

"All the talking heads are lamenting how Faust and Davies got to fill out their contracts but Willingham is now gone with two years left on his contract."

But it's not like ND didn't have to ante up the 2 years of Willingham's contract in cold hard cash, right?
Bet that wasn't, & won't be mentioned by any of the race pimps in the Liberal-Socialist quisling media, either.
And BTW, I don't think the omission of that detail is very fair in the interest of honest reporting.

"However, no one has stated the obvious that maybe Notre Dame has decided to bite the bullet early instead of later on when the program has gone a way they do not want it to proceed any further and not repeat the errors which saw Notre Dame football become a mere shadow of itself."

Or that maybe just perhaps Mr. Willingham permitted his [titanic] ego to run his mouth at a meeting whereby he told a roomfull of Catholic [priests?] running the university to go pound sand?
Something ya don't do in any setting *unless* you really want to be terminated.

"But I have noticed that whenever any black coach or baseball manager is fired, the sports media seems to always bring up racial aspects and ignore all else in the reportage."

Sure, but if & when it's a *religious* institution, the Liberal-Socialist quislings really enjoy piling on with the baloney.

This is not about "race" or the quisling mediot's *concern* about this or any other black coach.
It's about *religion*.

And that is just too sweet, to custom made an opportunity to slander organized religion for our ignoble quisling media.

...to ever pass up.

It is a myth that every coach at Notre Dame has an inalienable right to five years to prove himself. That has never been policy. Fifteen coaches in Notre Dame's storied history have, for various reasons, had tenures of less than five years.

That list includes Kuharich, Devore, McKeever and Anderson since Rockne. More recently coaches Davie and Faust were given five years, and those decisions proved to be miserable failures.

There was some justification to warrant Faust's extra time given his high school background and Father Ted's personal commitment to him, but giving Davie five years was gross negligence.

The five-year plan is not policy and even if it were time has proven it to be a colossal failure that should be learned from and not repeated. Ara himself set the standard by boldly stating upon his arrival that if you can’t do it in three years, you can’t do it. And without exception this has proven to be true. In the entire history of Notre Dame, no coach who failed at the three year mark, succeeded in five years. There are some who claim that because of parity, restrictions and other issues, that Notre Dame can't win anymore, but they said the exact same things before both Ara and Lou arrived in South Bend and were proved wrong.

Tedford, Meyer, Carroll, Stoops, Tressel, Amato, Friedgen, Holtz and others have made immediate impacts on their schools, most with far, far less talent than Notre Dame. When the five-year myth is promulgated by media talking heads and writers, it’s important to note that most of those talking heads and scribes are not fans of Notre Dame or speaking in Notre Dame's best interest.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.