Notre Dame Needs to Switch Its Nickname to the Pink-Domers

If you haven't guessed by now, I really despise fans who refuse to make objective assessments. This is especially true when the fan in question roots for a perennial contender and/or a squad/player that has every advantage over its contemporaries.

Hey, they are already good and/or beginning every year with an edge over the competition. That should be enough.

Which brings me to an article I ran across accusing Tyrone Willingham of being racist.

I've mentioned before that I graduated from Stanford and was there during the glory days of Willingham's tenure. I've also mentioned that, as a fraternity president, I had to deal with Stanford's Athletic Department because we had issues with the football team.

What I'm trying to convey is that, although I graduated from Stanford, I have no occasion to unreasonably love or defend Willingham (or the football team).

In fact, I found Willingham to be condescending and myopic as well as hypocritically self-righteous. Enough of the football players were brutish meatheads, looking to get drunk and kick some ass (a genuinely unfair proposition considering the physical stature of most Stanford students).

And to be honest, the article's author makes a fantastic observation about Willingham's paucity of African-American coordinators. He points out that coordinator is to head coach as a senator or governor is to the President of the United States: not required but a damn good place to start.

Consequently, to lob accusations of racism based on the lack of African-American head coaches while doing NOTHING at the most effective point to help solve the problem is both condescending and myopic (not to mention stupid and obviously hypocritical).

But then the author puts on his pink Notre Dame hat and ruins everything.

While rightfully blasting Willingham for crying racism while refusing to hire black coordinators, the author points out that Notre Dame deserves praise because it has hired numerous coordinators of color. Anyone see a problem with that?

Why does Willingham get blamed for not hiring while Notre Dame gets credit for hiring?

It's a subtle but significant change. The author blames the coach in one case because it matches his personal bias (which is either love of Notre Dame, hatred towards Tyrone Willingham, and/or hatred towards African-Americans in general, with the latter being the least likely).

Then, he switches the underlying assumption: that coaches control the hiring/firing of coordinators because it allows him to laud the school and stay consistent to his personal bias.

But for some of the years, the coach worked for the school. I understand that the African-American coordinators were hired after Willingham left. However, if Notre Dame gets credit for the hires after Ty left, don't they get blamed for the non-hires while he was there?

If the coach controls the hiring, then the school can receive no blame. If the school controls the hiring, then the coach can receive no blame (the reality is more complicated since both sides always have some influence regardless of who makes the final decision, but you get the point).

It can't be both ways unless Notre Dame changed its hiring policies after Willingham left, which is possible.

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