Newsflash! Notre Dame A Racist Insitution!
Indiana and Florida, Too!
In post-game comments with ABC's John Saunders following his beat down at the hands of his former team, Tyrone Willigham did his best to jump on the racial discrimination bandwagon, by insinuating that if observers read between the lines, that race was a factor in his dismissal:
Saunders: You weren't given the five years that other coaches got to demonstrate those skills. Do you think it is in part because you're an African-American?
Willingham: I've always said that in this country there is no absence of racism, okay, we're all aware of that, it's been here for quite some time, okay. And to think it would NOT factor in may be naïve on my part.
Once and for all, let's set the record straight: Ty, you are not a good football coach, at least by Notre Dame's standards. And for the purposes of this viewing audience, those are the standards we are using.
Consider the following list:
Tyrone Willingham 21-15-0 (0.583)
Bob Davie 35-25-0 (0.583)
Gerry Faust 30-26-1 (0.535)
Joe Kuharich 17-23-0 (0.425)
Hugh Devore 9-9-1 (0.500)
And from 1887-1893 "No coach" went 7-5-0 (0.583).
Of the twenty-seven full-time coaches in Note Dame football history, twenty-one of them coached at least two full seasons, and fifteen of those twenty-one had winning percentages of 0.600 or better. In fact, of the pool who coached less than two full seasons, six of seven of those coaches had winning percentages of 0.625 or better.
So what conclusions can we draw from this? Two things.
1. The only "minority class" which applies to Willingham is that he was in the very small minority of ND coaches who couldn't get the job done. Only four coaches in Notre Dame history--McGlew,Devore, Kuharich and Faust--had worse records than Willingham, with McGlew only serving one year (5-4 0.556).
2. Any coach who cannot perform better than "no coach" (1887-1893) doesn't deserve to work at Notre Dame.
