Al Golden: Coming or Going?

Current UVa Defensive Coordinator May be Staying With the Cavaliers

Dec. 17, 2004 Al Golden Comments on His Commitment to Virginia

Charlottesville, Va. - Al Golden, Defensive Coordinator at the University of
Virginia, issued this statement Friday morning:

"After a week of baseless speculation, I feel it is necessary to firmly state
my commitment to being the Defensive Coordinator at Virginia. We have made great
strides in a short time and I believe we are building something special. We came
up a little short of our goal of a championship, but I am dedicated to help us
finish with nine wins and a third straight bowl win. We have a great nucleus
returning for 2005 that includes some players who have also made a similar
commitment to be at Virginia, and I want to help them finish their careers on a
high note."

Head Coach Al Groh remarked, "Al has done a marvelous job of molding our defensive players and systems. Finishing 11th in the country in scoring defense is evidence of that. He is a tremendous resource for us with a very bright future. I have high regard for his work and am thrilled by his enthusiasm for and confidence in the future of Virginia football."

There appears to be a small amount of room to read between the lines with regards to the above. Initially, Golden notes his commitment to helping the team prepare and compete in their upcoming bowl game, which could leave the door open for a departure to ND after the season. But he then goes further and mentions wanting to finish what he started with current players through 2005, which would seem to indicate remaining at UVa.

Which Al is talking here? Does Golden truly feel this way? Or has Al Groh--known for his obsessive penchant to control every aspect of the team (he presently forbids any coaches from speaking with the media)--issued these comments in Golden's name so as to mitigate distractions prior to the bowl game?

Who knows. However, some ND/UVa fans have pointed out that Golden's squad in this year's big games were less than golden. In their three losses this year, all losses to the only ranked teams they played, FSU, Miami and Virginia Tech, UVa's defense gave up an average of 30+ points per game.

However, Al Golden does have a reputation as an energetic and effective recruiter, which could be a bigger loss for the Irish should he choose to stay in Charlottesville.

The Book on Charlie Weis

New England Patriots' Charlie Weis Named 28th Notre Dame Football Coach
A 1978 University of Notre Dame graduate, Weis brings 15 years of NFL experience to the Irish program.

Reactions and Comments From Media Analysts, Coaches and Players

Notre Dame Has Sold Its Soul For Football Glory... Again.

The Devil Went Up to South Bend...

ND must be the best salesmen in the world for continuing to over and over sell the same product that, according to the media, they'd already previously sold.

INSIDE THE MEDIA HATCHET JOB ON ND by Scott Michael Edwards (NDNation.com)

Monkeyshines

Malloy is backpedalling so fast he's in danger of blowing out his ACL...

Monk clarifies remarks, supports Weis (The Observer by Matt Lozar)

Can't Cheer For Old Notre Dame

The JSL Counterpunch to Lil' Ian O'Connor

Dear Mr. O'Connor:
I made it about halfway through this column before the sanctimony and pretentiousness choked out my monitor, but I think I got the gist.

Your reaction -- in fact most of the media's reaction to Notre Dame's inevitable actions over the last couple of weeks simply adds up to a tired and failed PC agenda. As a head coach on the field, Willingham is and has always been aggressively mediocre everywhere he goes. While racially charged accusations fly, the only black and white that matters is on the stat sheet -- a 56% career winning percentage. The guy loses practically half the games he coaches. That's not good enough for any major program in the country. The only reason it's supposed to be good enough at Notre Dame is because those with your political agenda and world view want the football program to be some societal beacon for cultural experimentation. NEWSFLASH: It's a football program...not a social justice workshop.

All you're saying is, " ND football = Appearance over substance. APPEAR progressive. APPEAR englightened. Make THAT statement. Fight for the CAUSE. Fall on your sword. Turn the football program into some kumbaya diversity workshop in which all the players are nice, get straight As, bow and scrape to their .500 coaching staff, and avoid offending anyone. But, don't COMPETE. Don't WIN. Because competition is bad, as is the fact that there are winners and losers in life. Making money is bad. Distinguishing yourself in practical, easily identified ways is bad because there's no aura of altruism and moral snobbery about it all to make you feel warm, snuggly and superior to everyone else.

USC? You can win. Oklahoma? Alabama? Michigan? Nebraska? Go for it. Do whatever you want to compete, aspire to excellence, and distinguish yourself and your university. Let's just make sure Notre Dame obsesses over socially appropriate PR moves and continues to wallow in comfortable, all-inclusive mediocrity. Anything to soothe our own insecurity.

So, as ND moves on from this Neverland fever swamp of blue state angst, all we learn is there are just as many sanctimonious, perpetually nervous hand-wringers in sports media as there are on the news side. Same cause and reason. As Fr. Malloy leaves and takes his failed administration with him (leaving a university that's in turmoil athletically, academically and spiritually), Notre Dame supporters also look forward to losing all of your ilk with him. Your era of affirmative action and inconsistent and arbitrary PC morality is coming to an end, replaced by the rule of law and a world of facts -- the inevitable, necessary victory of the true human desire for excellence and achievement.

But, good news...That fact should keep you in insipid, whiny columns for some time to come.

Regards,
John Scott Lewinski

P.S.: Do something about the hair. You look like a ventriloquist's dummy. "Say hello to the nice folks, Little Ian..."

Welcome, Coach Weis

As we take this opportunity to welcome Coach Weis, I'd like to mention the refrain heard across Irish fandom the past week and a half: that Notre Dame had no margin for error with this hire; that he had to be the right guy or the program was finished and might as well join the Ivy League.

Whether that is true or not is anybody's guess. But let's assume the worst case scenario happens and Weis is no better than Willingham at restoring the luster to Notre Dame football. At least we know we won't have to wait 5 years before making another change.

Fr. Ted Chimes In

Anyone Want to Argue With The Esteemed Patriarch of Notre Dame???

This is Fr. Ted Hesburgh responding to media criticism after the Terry Brennen firing (1958), to the “Notre Dame has sold its soul for football glory” line that critics love to hurl whenever Notre Dame makes a bold move to better the football program. Either way, his response nicely sums up ND’s stated goal that it strives for academic excellence AND the pursuit of championship football.

“Several years ago Sports Illustrated kindly invited me to express some convictions regarding intercollegiate athletics. In a recent (1958) article entitled “Surrender at Notre Dame,” you say that I have found it impossible to live with these convictions at Notre Dame and have reversed myself, or allowed myself to be reversed, albeit reluctantly. If I read the article correctly, and separated the fact from the fiction, your conclusion is derived from the single fact of our having changed football coaches. Here are a few more facts and convictions that may suggest an alternate, although perhaps less colorful, interpretation of that single fact.

“My primary conviction has been, and is, that whatever else a university may be, it must first of all be a place dedicated to excellence. Most of my waking hours are directed to the achievement of that excellence here in the academic order. As long as we, like most American universities, are engaged in intercollegiate athletics, we will strive for excellence of performance in this area too, but never at the expense of the primary order of academic excellence.”

"He (the ND head coach) understands what we stand for and he has our confidence. Despite any syndicated surmises to the contrary, he is not expected to be Rockne, but only himself; he is not to be measured by any nostalgic calculus of wins, losses and national championships but only by the excellence of his coaching and the spirit of his teams."

“A university could make broad and significant changes in academic personnel to achieve greater excellence, and attract only a ripple of attention. But let the same university make a well-considered change in athletics for the same reason, and it sparks the ill-considered charge that it is no longer a first rate academic institution and must henceforth be considered a football factory. It seems to me a little more thought is in order regarding what makes and institution academically first rate…. What the University does athletically, assuming it to be in the proper framework, neither adds to nor subtracts anything from relevant and all-important academic facts.”

“There is no academic virtue in playing mediocre football and no academic vice in winning a game that by all odds one should lose...There has been a surrender at Notre Dame, but it is a surrender to excellence on all fronts, and in this we hope to rise above ourselves with the help of God.“

Chandra Johnson: PR Whore

Now that the dust has settled, it's time we addressed one more loose end.

The weekend after TW's dismissal, Malloy assistant Chandra Johnson shaved her head in protest over the firing, promising to keep her head shaved until Notre Dame wins a national championship.'

First of all, she can start hitting the Rogaine. ND's women's soccer team won the national championship on December 5th.

But more importantly, let's recognize this for what it really is: a self-centered, ego-driven publicity stunt. Ms. Johnson,

has no interest in sports. She attends Notre Dame football games as part of her job but doesn't avidly devour the games like the legions of Fighting Irish fans.

...which leads one to ascertain that she didn't care enough to support the team--or its coaching staff--on her own personal volition, except that she believed it to be part of her job.

So why all the personal interest now? Anybody order the well-done hubris at this table?