12/22/24
December 03, 2004
ND really, really screwed?: If this (a former ND assistant from the midwest with catholic roots has chosen UF over ND) is true, ND has really, really shot itself in the foot. Serves them right.
I don't necessarily think it Willingham's firing was racist, just stupid- those same rich and influential alumni have their heads in the sand about ND's position relative to the Miamis and FSUs of the college football world. They think they should be in national championship contention every year, when they should probably be satisified with a winning record and a bowl trip most years. No sane coach (which it now appears Meyer is) would inflict those expectations on themselves.
posted by tieguy at 01:31 PM on December 03, 2004
Pauses for a moment of sweet sweet schadenfreude.
posted by ursus_comiter at 01:37 PM on December 03, 2004
18th Century racist freaks Who does this refer to, exactly?
posted by yerfatma at 01:40 PM on December 03, 2004
No sane coach (which it now appears Meyer is) would inflict those expectations on themselves. Tieguy, are you suggesting that the reasonably similarly intense pressures at UF are more acceptable because of the lower academic standards? If not, what?
posted by billsaysthis at 02:10 PM on December 03, 2004
It's easier for UF to live up to intense expectations than it is for ND. One reason is that it is easier to recruit to UF, and one reason for that is that UF has lower admission standards.
posted by mbd1 at 02:17 PM on December 03, 2004
Sorry, yerfatma. I've just always been convinced that the resistance to hiring Ty Willingham came in some part from racism, and while ultimately they gave him a chance to succeed, they didn't give him a chance to fall on his face, which is an important part of the whole equality thing. Nothing the pointy-heads at ND have done since then has convinced me otherwise, and their hamhanded choices and manner here shows a real lack of respect for a coach who, through his accomplishments and demeanor, certainly deserved way better treatment, especially from an institution that prides itself on being among the highest of the higher education in academe. "18th Century racist freaks" might have been an exaqggeration. How about "late 19th century racist freaks"?
posted by chicobangs at 02:17 PM on December 03, 2004
That's fine, but are we talking about the alumni or the non-leity Catholic administration of the school?
posted by yerfatma at 02:33 PM on December 03, 2004
billsaythis: what mbd1 said, basically. Easier recruiting is the core of it- more glamorous recent history, no on-campus mass, better weather, closer to current hotbeds of football talent, looser admissions standards, etc., etc. Ironically, this article says the number of minority applicants to ND was the highest ever in 2003- something the assistant provost for admissions attributes to... having a black football coach.
posted by tieguy at 02:51 PM on December 03, 2004
So, do you think the fact that they passed on Meyer when they hired Willingham had anything to do with it...or am I just making that up? Or was the Florida offer a patently obscene amount of coin?
posted by chris2sy at 03:10 PM on December 03, 2004
Willingham was 21-15 after three years at Notre Dame. Gerry Faust was 18-15-1 after three years. Bob Davie was 21-16 after three years. I don't want to play the race card, but only one of these coaches didn't get to finish out his contract in South Bend. His results were close enough to his immediate predecessors to be worthy of another two years.
posted by rcade at 03:17 PM on December 03, 2004
For one if my new coach only did as good as the previous two coaches I had, he would no longer be my coach. You pick out a coach to improve your team, not to just have the same result. So the last three coaches had pretty much the same record and they are all not there anymore. Racism or just an attempt to improve one's team. Who knows. Willingham is better off somewhere else where they can actually recruit good talent and his coaching abilities can be truley appreciated.
posted by aaronscmc11 at 04:21 PM on December 03, 2004
Chicobangs, rcade, et al... Do a little more reading into the matter. Willingham was fired because he was mediocre, prideful, and too loyal. The AD at ND approached him after the 5-7 2003 season and instructed him to hire new assistants. He refused. He was approached again on Sunday after the USC debacle and told to replace the OC and other assistants and he, again, refused. That's what prompted the last minute BOT meeting his eventual contractual buyout. The "ND always lets coaches finish their contracts" thing is BS. That's not always the case. Futhermore, neither Davie nor Faust ever improved after year 3, and I don't think any ND coach has improved their winning pct after year 3. Why continue to give them more time, especially when a coach refuses to make any staff changes? That's the definition of insanity. Notre Dame could not afford to have two mediocre coaches for 5 years back to back. As it stands, Davie and Willingham may have killed the program. If the order had been Willingham then Davie there would be no discussion, period. If anything, he got the job because of his race, not fired because of it. He was fired because he didn't get the job done, and he admitted as much in his press conference yesterday.
posted by House at 05:08 PM on December 03, 2004
1. Forget about race. Willingham was fired because he was a mediocre coach who could not get the job done according to ND standards. 2. Re: Meyer ... If ND gets screwed, good. It's time (and long overdue) for a reality check at ND.
posted by roberts at 05:33 PM on December 03, 2004
If Willingham was mediocre, why would it matter whether or not he replaced his assistants? I'm not a big Notre Dame fan, but I don't see the logic in firing a coach before his first recruiting class gets a chance to graduate. The Irish will get worse before they get better, and putting the shiv in Willingham like this scares off big names from the school. How does any of that help? The school had the right idea when they gave Davie and Faust five years. No top program should bring in a coach without giving him a fair chance to succeed, and three years isn't enough time.
posted by rcade at 05:39 PM on December 03, 2004
The school had the right idea when they gave Davie and Faust five years. I don't think Gerry Faust's situation isn't even relevant to the discussion. And no one ever had the right idea giving Bob Davie a five year contract. He sucked like an Electrolux. I don't think Ty got a fair shot. I would have liked to seen him keep coaching. The school administration may have folded faster than Superman on laundryday in the face of booster cash, but none of that makes this racism. How many more years do they have on the NBC contract? If they don't have a team worth watching before then, they're done.
posted by yerfatma at 07:21 PM on December 03, 2004
If Willingham was mediocre, why would it matter whether or not he replaced his assistants? I'm not a big Notre Dame fan, but I don't see the logic in firing a coach before his first recruiting class gets a chance to graduate. By asking him to replace his assistants, ND was just throwing a bone to the alumni (read boo$ters) who were sick of ND's football record. Willingham, rightly or wrongly, wouldn't do it, so they made him pay the price. ND doesn't care about a coach lasting till his first recruiting class graduates. Schools don't give out football scholarships for academic reasons. Those recruits are supposed to deliver on the football field -- and quickly. After all, this is ND.
posted by roberts at 07:54 PM on December 03, 2004
Institutional racism is a huge problem for black coaches in I-A football. There's no other explanation for why a sport with so many black players (50 percent) now has only two black head coaches. Black coaches can't get the gigs that lead up the ladder to the top job. The good-ol'-boy network hasn't brought enough of them into the club, and I wonder if it ever will. If Willingham gets another head coaching job in I-A, he will be the first black coach ever to do that after being fired. All the others were canned and never hired anywhere else. Considering the scope of the problem, I don't think we should summarily rule out race as a factor in why Willingham was given the early hook.
posted by rcade at 08:01 PM on December 03, 2004
Institutional racism is a huge problem for black coaches in I-A football. Very true. Which is why it's dangerous to throw out racism so casually when a black coach is fired. If a school knows that accusations of racism will be brought up should a coach be fired, I'm sure that fact goes into the initial choosing of the coach. So ND fires a coach before fans think he got a fair shake. Doesn't mean it had anything to do with race. College athletics is simply out of hand. It's a big business with a win NOW attitude, and it's only getting worse. Calling racism on one of the few Division 1 schools to ever hire a black head coach is shooting yourself in the foot.
posted by justgary at 10:58 PM on December 03, 2004
I'm sorely disappointed, but not terribly surprised by Meyer's decision (if this is indeed the case). From the reports that I have seen so far, Florida offered $1M more a year, and it is a much, much easier environment in which to succeed than ND. I honestly don't know whether ND will be able to find someone better than Willingham, who everyone has agreed was a class act and a fine coach (though whether he was good enough to succeed with the Irish is obviously a matter of disagreement). I for one thought that he deserved to stay for the full term of the contract, not because Davie and Faust received that treatment, but because it was the right thing to do. However, it cannot be disagreed with that this was a team that was not showing signs of improvement, either with regard to record or the margin of victory/defeat. Furthermore, there didn't appear to be a system in place on either side of the line of scrimmage. Both the defense and the offense were inconsistent in their manner of play, and the players appeared to no longer care. But that's not the fun thing to talk about, because everyone appears to only want to talk about one thing: "Considering the scope of the problem, I don't think we should summarily rule out race as a factor in why Willingham was given the early hook." So fine, let's talk about that. President Emeritus Theodore Hesburgh is the former chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The university houses one of the foremost centers for human rights law in the country, and minority enrollment has increased every year for the past 17 years. Race relations on campus (and alumni orientation) are no different, or perhaps even better than other schools in its class, though there is always room for improvement, which the school has been making. So before you assume that everyone (or at least the decisonmakers) at ND is racist, let's do some basic homework first. And I say this as a ND grad who is also a person of color. Does it look bad for Willingham to be fired when Davie and Faust weren't? Sure, at first glance (it does for me). However, not every factor for each of the coaches is the same. Let's wait until the next coach is hired and see whether he (or dare we dream, she?) has a similarly mediocre first three years in a five year contract. If that coach (of whatever color) is kept on, then the race issue will be that much stronger. Until then, let's put that card in the back pocket and toss it out when it is really required. Abusing the race issue is demeaning to us all, and keeps us from looking at good, decent people like Ty Willingham as a human being first, rather than as Black first.
posted by avogadro at 11:05 PM on December 03, 2004
Institutional racism is a huge problem for black coaches in I-A football. Assuming that's true, wouldn't it be less of a factor at one of the schools that did hire a black coach?
posted by yerfatma at 11:18 PM on December 03, 2004
Willingham was let go because ND thought they could get Meyer.. If Meyer wouldnt have been available, Willingham would still be coach! To me, its that simple!
posted by daddisamm at 08:15 AM on December 04, 2004
Does it look bad for Willingham to be fired when Davie and Faust weren't? Sure, at first glance (it does for me). That's all I'm saying. It looks bad enough that the issue of race should be raised, and has been raised throughout the media the past week. Willingham's hire was a bit of a fluke at Notre Dame -- they chose him quickly because of the O'Leary debacle. Would he have been named coach in a normal deliberative process at the school? As a Florida resident, I think it's funny to hear UF described as an easier environment for a coach to succeed in. Tell that to the smoldering pile of ash where Ron Zook used to be. At least the next Notre Dame coach can fall back on the tough academic standards excuse. What excuse could Urban Meyer use for not winning a national title, considering the kind of players he'll be able to get here?
posted by rcade at 08:40 AM on December 04, 2004
As a Florida resident, I think it's funny to hear UF described as an easier environment for a coach to succeed in. Tell that to the smoldering pile of ash where Ron Zook used to be. At least the next Notre Dame coach can fall back on the tough academic standards excuse. Understood, though ND coaches aren't allowed to use that excuse (I remember Holtz being savaged at the end of his career there for saying as much). It's a "handicap" that will (and in my opinion, should) remain for any coach of any athletic team there. Then again, I myself don't expect the same levels of athletic excellence that would be expected at Florida, and I agree with you that Meyer will have no room for anything less than a 9-3 season, given the advantages of being in a warm environment, having a much deeper pool of recruits, and being in the middle of one of the richest recruiting environments anywhere. In any case, I do think that the environment is at least as hard as that at UF, and this is from someone who grew up in a family split by UT and A&M grads. Regarding racism, though I quoted you, rcade, my comment wasn't aimed directly at you, but at others in this thread and elsewhere that automatically assume that the decisionmaking was one of "late 19th century racist freaks". I initially didn't want to dignify that remark. Willingham's hire was a bit of a fluke at Notre Dame -- they chose him quickly because of the O'Leary debacle. Would he have been named coach in a normal deliberative process at the school? I would like to think that he would have, given his personal and coaching background. The only mark against Willingham that went O'Leary's way was that he didn't have the Catholic background, something still important for a student population that hovers around 90% mackeral-snapper. I myself preferred Willingham, and thought that O'Leary was a syncophantic fraud, but that's easier for me to say after the fact. Willingham was probably third after Gruden (fat chance) and O'Leary, but I don't recall the exact circumstances.
posted by avogadro at 09:28 AM on December 04, 2004
Would he have been named coach in a normal deliberative process at the school? Isn't no a reasonable answer to this question since Notre Dame did not hire him at the end of their previous normal search?
posted by billsaysthis at 10:28 AM on December 04, 2004
Meyer will have no room for anything less than a 9-3 season, The evidence would seem to suggest that the ND coach won't either.
posted by tieguy at 10:51 AM on December 04, 2004
And, uh, maybe the $2M a year made the decision easier too. I'm glad I'm no longer a Florida taxpayer. It is embarassing that a state without enough money for classrooms pays Bowden and Meyer this much money.
posted by tieguy at 01:07 PM on December 04, 2004
Isn't no a reasonable answer to this question since Notre Dame did not hire him at the end of their previous normal search? Unfortunately, probably yes.
posted by yerfatma at 02:26 PM on December 04, 2004
ND GOT PWNZ0RED!!!!!!1! After what they did to Willingham, it serves them right. (18th Century racist freaks running a once-proud program into the dirt. I hope some of the rich & influential alumni get together and force some changes at some very high levels. That's the only way this isn't going to get even worse for them.) Maybe they can get George O'Leary now. He's the right color & religion, and his fake resume has got to look better now than it did three years ago, right?