Dave Duerson, a Notre Dame All-American and a Pro Bowl safety for the Bears, suffered through critics’ insistence that the George O’Leary hiring-and-resigning fiasco was “a chink in Notre Dame’s armor.”
With unrestrained elation, he sees redemption in the imminent arrival of Tyrone Willingham.
“I said, `Out of this will come one of Notre Dame’s finest moments,'” said Duerson, a member of his alma mater’s selection committee, which chose Willingham.
Predicting the moment is near, Duerson said, “Tyrone Willingham is not the first African-American coach hired by a major university, but he will be the first African-American coach to win a Division I national championship.”
Alan Page and Harry Edwards view the world of sports from insider’s and outsider’s perspectives. Each has significant credentials in sports and a respected position in the world at large.
When they look at Notre Dame’s hiring of Willingham–the first black head coach at the university–they see sports and societal consequences.
And, as fellow African-Americans, they say Willingham’s place in South Bend campus history soon will be measured in non-racial terms.
“At Notre Dame, I don’t know how you could add any more coaching pressure than what’s already there,” said Page, an alumnus and Fighting Irish football standout who now is a Minnesota Supreme Court justice.
“Being a minority coach could bring an element that makes the pressure different. But extra pressure? I don’t see how.”
Page carried his on-field education to a Hall of Fame career as an NFL defensive lineman and his classroom education to law school and the state Supreme Court bench.
“I think it’s extremely significant that Notre Dame has hired a very good and successful football coach, first of all, who happens to be African-American,” he said.
“Given our history as a nation, particularly as it relates to sports at the college level, it’s of significance that any major university hires a minority head coach. The fact that it’s Notre Dame, a football powerhouse, sends an even more important message.”
Edwards, a sociology professor at the University of California and a player personnel consultant with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, said:
“What is significant about minority hiring in college football is when minority candidates are not given a serious opportunity, even a serious interview, for head-coaching positions.
“Once they get into that position, it’s no longer significant that they are African-American. Then, what’s significant is whether they win.
“The minority factor is of zero consequence from here out. Notre Dame will get credit for hiring a winner if that happens. If they don’t win, they will get the wrath of critics for hiring a loser.”
Duerson said Willingham “was always on our `A’ list of candidates, a very short list.”
While bringing a minority coach to South Bend is “somewhat unparallelled” and, therefore, “maybe like a Jackie Robinson hiring,” Duerson said, “This was not a black hiring. This was the right man for the job.”
Willingham came to Stanford in 1995 from the Minnesota Vikings, where he had been an assistant under coach Dennis Green. He also had been on Green’s staff when Green coached at Stanford.
An initial similarity facing Willingham at Stanford and Notre Dame is the challenge of building strong football programs “under tough academic conditions,” Page said.
Willingham began at Stanford under conditions similar to those at Notre Dame, which went 5-6 this season in Bob Davie’s coaching finale.
At Stanford, Willingham inherited a 3-7-1 team from departing Cardinal coach Bill Walsh, then led Stanford to a 7-4-1 record in 1995 and to postseason bowl games in that and the following season. Stanford was a Rose Bowl team in 1999, losing to Wisconsin, and this year’s Cardinal finished 9-3 after losing to Georgia Tech in the postseason Seattle Bowl.
“Good coaches don’t need to inherit good teams to succeed,” Page said, recalling that when he arrived at Notre Dame in 1964 along with new coach Ara Parseghian, the Irish had gone 2-7 the previous season. “We finished 9-1 in 1964.”
In 1966 Page and his teammates went 9-0-1 and were voted national champions.
But there is also heightened risk coaching at Notre Dame, Page cautioned.
“Even for coaches who have met the challenge and lived up to those great predecessors, it has been very difficult because you are expected to succeed,” he said.
If Willingham does, his hiring might take on a “what took you so long?” aspect, Edwards said. Although he did not expect that to launch a trend of hiring minority coaches for major football programs, he believes it could affect recruiting black athletes to the South Bend campus. Said Edwards:
“In some instances, a minority coach could be a pivotal concern. But that is an issue for parents, not for schools.”
